Not All Who Wander Are Lost
by paxnirvana
Summary: Havok returns to his home universe, only to discover it is a dark and dangerous place and that things will never be the same.
1. Part 1

Not All Who Wander Are Lost - Part 1 by paxnirvana  Format for use with submitting fanfic. Not All Who Wander Are Lost - Part 1  by paxnirvana 
    
    Rating: R [mature themes]
    Character: Alex Summers
    Archive: If you like it, just ask me.

Author's Note: Well, no current spoilers because this is 100% AU kiddies. Alex is still dead in canon. Most of the events referred to happened so dang long ago it just doesn't matter any more. And I'm going somewhere with this. . . I'm just not exactly certain where. 9/28/01

Disclaimer: Marvel owns it all. I'm just pretending. They make the money and I don't even pretend to do that.

* * * * *

Alaska. The irony wasn't lost on him. He'd died in Maryland and come back to life in Alaska. Fitting somehow. 

Alex Summers realized later, of course, that it was the same physical location as Magneto's Arctic Citadel on the world of the Six. He'd died there, so the Nexus deposited him in the same place. Home. But what was it? A year? A year and a half later? 

He'd been so busy coping with the adjustment to the other world that time there had just slipped away from him. Adjusting to being a husband, a father, a leader of a bizarrely familiar yet different mutant team. Fighting to save his son, his wife from evil. Discovering his destiny. Finding the promise of something precious that he'd never experienced before. . . then he was dead again. Now here. 

He sighed deeply, propping his feet up on the warm stone hearth, staring into the crackling fire. He was dressed in an old hugely baggy pair of sweats, thick wool socks on his feet. Outside a nasty storm raged. Ice. Wind. Cold. He'd opened a can of soup, earlier, heating it in a cast iron pot beside the fire. Roughing it. He had no money, no ID. He was, after all, dead. But he'd gotten better. The old joke didn't even make him laugh in his own head. 

He should call someone. Tell them he was alive. Another practitioner of the Summers family trait of resurrection. Really, he should. He'd stumbled half-frozen into an oil company's geological survey station just below the Arctic Circle and they'd warmed him up, fed him, clothed him and then made arrangements for him to be flown back to Anchorage, apparently the lucky survivor of a plane crash. He'd intended to call Westchester. And Washington. But something stopped him. 

Was it the house? It was Scott and Jean's place, after all. He'd stared a long time at the pictures on the mantle when he'd first come inside after digging up the spare key from its hiding place under the woodpile out back. Shocked, mostly. Shocked because he actually recognized the pictures. They were the ones he knew. The ones from his own world. He really was home. 

The pictures gave him a strange pang. Jean. Maddie. They looked so much the same, and yet were so very different beneath the surface. He could tell instantly that it was Jean in the pictures; Jean snuggled happily under Scott's arm on the couch, Jean smiling sleepily up at the camera from a nest of blankets in front of this very fireplace, Jean cradling a sleeping Nathan Christopher in her arms while standing on the wind-swept deck of an alien spaceship in New York harbor, Jean rolling her green eyes in mock disgust at a mid-sized trout held up proudly by a faintly smirking Scott beside her. He'd taken the last picture himself, Alex remembered. During one of their rare family get-togethers. An adult Nathan Christopher even loomed darkly in the background of the shot, his metal arm gleaming dully in the summer sun, a mild scowl on his face. They'd looked pretty happy. He didn't remember if they had actually been happy, however. So many of their reunions ended in shouting matches that he wasn't sure if that time had been one of them or not. 

And he wondered, not for the first time, what had happened when he 'died' here. Time had passed at the same pace on both worlds. He hadn't been transported back to the instant of his disappearance – thankfully. He really hadn't wanted to be caught in the temporal explosion with Greystone again, but floating exhausted in the void after dissipating the Goblin Force he just hadn't cared. The Six would survive. Maddie had been freed. Scotty was safe. That was all that mattered. Anything else, anything more for himself just hadn't mattered. . . in the void. 

But then he'd actually woken up. The two-story fall into a deep drift of snow had done it. Two-stories from where his body had been stretched out on the slab in Magneto's lab – in the other world, several layers of reality away. He could feel the Nexus of Realities pulsing inside him. Mostly dormant now. Drained. But still there, still detectable, now that he had acknowledged it. 

A thing of incredible power. And there was that old saying about power and corruption. 

Occasionally he thought it was trying to tell him something. He wasn't certain what, yet, since he'd never been the most introspective of people. In your face, volatile, hot-headed – those fit. But not thoughtful, studious or learned. Nope. Not Alex Summers, chump and screw-up of the clan. So his new sense of, well, the only way he could think to describe it was a kind of. . . connectedness, felt odd. 

He'd seen far too much, in his time as an X-Man, with X-Factor, on his own, not to believe in forces beyond normal perceptions. Magic. It still spooked him. Spirits. Demons. Temptation. There were things out there that only the most sensitive, skilled humans could deal with properly. And he'd never had any interest in being one of them. However, it looked as if the wretched Summers luck wasn't giving him that luxury. 

Because now he was seeing ghosts. 

This wasn't the same house Scott had lived with Maddie in. That house had been destroyed by Sinister when he tried to retrieve Maddie and baby Nathan Christopher. This was a new house Scott had bought to honeymoon with Jean in, and to be near his grandparents. He felt a pang of guilt at that. He hadn't even called his grandparents. If they were both still alive. 

There was a brief stirring of shadows. A log cracked and broke in the fire. Time seemed to still, and, somehow, he just knew that both of his grandparents were still alive. He shook off the strange sensation, not wanting to know how he knew, but taking comfort in the knowledge anyway. At least that way they wouldn't haunt him. 

He'd already seen several different ghosts. A curiously calm young man with a flaming eye and tightly shorn hair – Nate Grey? A big man with long white hair and a sense of beatific peace about him – Joseph? Then several others, far less distinct and defined: a flash of a purple blade; a dark, brooding shadow; a gleam of silver armor and pale blonde hair; the empty eyes of a blind woman; flames about a grinning, living skull; a wide, eager, boyish smile; a ripple of flesh that became steel. Impressions of people. Perhaps even people he'd once known. Now dead? He didn't like to look too closely, willed them to leave him alone, afraid of what he might see. 

But there was one particular, persistent ghost that bothered him the most. A woman. A beautiful woman with red hair and infinitely sad green eyes wearing a blue sheath dress and high matching pumps. 

His heart had thudded painfully at the sight. Madelyne Pryor. Maddie as she had come to him in Australia, so very long ago. 

Not his Maddie, but the scorned wife of his brother who had – through her pain at his rejection of her for Jean and her confusion over her very existence – nearly thrown the world and even her own son down into a demonic Inferno. And who had come very close to taking Alex, at least, with her. He'd understood her pain, her loss too well – sympathized with her rage, her betrayal. Scott had done it to them both. It had seemed, if not natural or right, then at least bitterly fitting to turn to each other in their confusion. Or at least he had been confused. She, somehow, had tried to manipulate him the whole way. 

Finally, he thought he understood why. 

Alex lifted his gaze from the flames, not particularly surprised to see the pale, flickering shade of her again at the edge of the light. As if just thinking of her had summoned her. 

"Maddie," he said. The image of her wavered, as if in reaction to his voice, then solidified slightly. 

"You do see. . ." Her voice was like a slow breath of the icy wind outside, slipping through the shutters. Sending a chill up his spine. 

"Yes," he said, watching her. Drinking in the sight of her, yet noticing the subtle differences. Not the Maddie he'd come to cherish, there at the end in the world of the Six. Not the mother of his son. Yet still Maddie. She stared at him, green eyes troubled. 

"Something called me. I didn't want to come, not again. Then I saw you, Alex," she said, her voice breaking and fading on odd words. He had to concentrate to hear her. To learn to hear her, he guessed. "There are so many here who have used me. Made me. Shaped me for their own purposes." She looked sad, defeated somehow. It was quite a change from the focused, assured woman he'd once known. "Only you, Alex, didn't ask anything from me. You were just my friend when I needed one most. It was I who sought something from you." She bowed her magnificent head with shame. Was that what she was here for? Forgiveness? To apologize? 

"Thanks for the offer, Maddie," he said with a wry, sad smile of his own. If he was going to have to have a conversation like this with a ghost, he might as well be honest. "But there isn't really any excuse for committing adultery with my brother's wife. We used each other, I'll grant. But I still chose to sleep with you." 

"I was the Goblin Queen, Alex, twisting everything I touched," she said, flaming tears falling from her eyes. The fire of her spirit, maybe? He was neither poet nor mystic, but she was beautiful and her sorrow tugged at his heart. "How could you have resisted me?" 

He laughed bitterly, and it was a dark sound that lifted her head with astonishment. It wasn't a sound he'd made around her before. 

"I've faced a lot of unpleasant things since then," he said, rising off the couch and taking a step toward her at the edge of the light. She searched his expression curiously, her form seeming to strengthen as he drew closer. "About life, about myself. It was always up to me, Maddie, even then. But childishly I used you to strike at Scott – and it was just wrong in so many ways." He smiled at her sadly, staring at her beloved features. Memorizing them. "I only did one thing right in the middle of that whole crazy mess; I, at least, knew who you were. You were always just Maddie to me. And that was enough." 

Her face crumpled and fell at his words, the strange fiery tears now taking on the shine of actual tears in the flickering firelight. He watched her cry for a moment, torn. Then, with a deep sigh, he stepped forward to wrap her in his arms. Almost expecting her to disappear even as he tried. But she didn't fade away. In fact she felt quite solid. Nearly real. She flinched at his touch and sucked in a hitching breath of surprise, then leaned her head against his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him in return. Desperately. He even felt the bite of nails in his back as she clutched at him. 

They stood in silence for a moment until a shiver seized one of them, making both shudder. It was cold over here by the windows, away from the fire. Whispering soothing words in her ear, he turned them both back toward the fireplace. Neither looked up at the photos on the mantle. 

"Alex, I was made for him I know, but oh, if the true choice had been mine. . ." Her voice trailed away and her green eyes shown with tears as she looked deeply into his eyes. ". . . if it was you I had met first. How different could the world have been?" 

Her wistful and slightly bitter words made him smile. He knew that here other factors had come into play – Scott had still been around, after all. Lorna. Mr. Sinister. But the possibilities she raised still made him smile. 

"Very," he said, hugging her close. "In another world, Maddie, we'd have lived together for many happy years, had a son of our own." 

"You sound so certain." 

He shrugged lightly. "I just came from a place where that happened." 

"Were we happy there?" she asked, staring into his eyes. There was a kind of need there for reassurance, for validation. And a desperate, searching hope that, despite her very creation as a pivotal part in Mr. Sinister's design to ensnare Scott and create his perfect weapon, somewhere underneath had been the possibility that she might have won free, if only things had gone differently. Now he regretted bringing the other world up at all – since even there, and not long after he'd arrived, the Goblin Force had seized that world's Maddie and twisted her too. Because of the Nexus. Their contentment had been short-lived. But it had existed. 

"Yes," he said, remembering tales that Robert and the Brute had told him of their life at Westchester before the split from Magneto and his X-Men. They had been happy, once. Very happy. Until he – or that world's Alex, actually – had ruined it by having an affair with Susan Richards. He sighed deeply. Summers, it appeared, might just be constitutionally unable to keep from fucking up their own lives. 

The thought made him draw her close, hugging her tightly, a hand buried in her rich mane of hair. He laid his cheek on her head and closed his eyes, savoring the feel of her. She stayed still, pressed warm against him. They stood that way for a long while, in silence, until Alex felt a strange pull inside him, on the Nexus. 

"Uncle Alex, huh?" 

Madelyne stiffened in his arms and he opened his eyes to meet a mischievous, mismatched gaze; blue and gold. The close-cropped hair was brown with a white patch at the front. An odd black mark, maybe a round tattoo, adorned the slender boy's bare chest. He wore tattered black slacks, but nothing else. Strangely, he didn't look cold. 

"Nate Grey," Alex said quietly, recognizing him. He didn't let Maddie draw away. 

"Well, as much of him as we can pull out of the ether right now," the apparition said with a shrug. Madelyne looked him over as well but with clear recognition, and not a little dismay. The boy grinned at her. 

"Pseudo-mom!" he said heartily, golden eye flashing. "Hard to get any rest around here isn't it?" 

"Nate," she acknowledged, then returned his smile warmly, if only briefly. Nate Grey turned his attention back to Alex. 

"Uncle Alex, huh?" the boy said again, looking him over curiously. "I met Prelate Summers once. He was a full-on bastard. Tried to kill my bio-mom. And his own brother." Alex grimaced. 

"So I've been told," Alex snapped, remembering the glee with which the Dark Beast had spun his hideous tales of life in the Age of Apocalypse. And how the Summers brothers had apparently flourished near the top of the ladder of mutant supremacy – with Sinister's loving guidance. Except for Scott, once again. Scott had rebelled, while Alex had pursued him with destructive vigor. Envious, as always, of everything his brother had. Determined to take it all away, if he could. "That wasn't me." But he shivered. It could have been. And had been in a way, through the woman still in his arms. 

"Oh, I know that. It's just fun to push." 

"Why are you here, Nate? I thought you died." 

"Well, not really. I sort of went. . . wide. I'm everywhere now. Like Joseph, here." The boy gestured to the side and suddenly a tall young man with long white hair loomed behind him. A carbon copy of Magneto, actually. The newcomer's expression was grave. 

"It is the Nexus, Havok," Joseph said quietly, gaze flicking to Madelyne. "It is drawing those trapped in between out again." Alex blinked at him, then at Nate Grey. The boy just raised his brows at him, his own expression sobering. All playfulness and hints of youth gone in a flash. 

"What?" 

"You must control it, or it will control you." 

Alex felt a shiver run through him. "Shit. I was afraid of something like that." Nate Grey nodded, his youthful face strange when weighed against the sad and ancient wisdom that lived in his eyes. Alex shivered at the knowledge he found there. Why now? And why him? He sighed and gave Nate the nod of understanding he was waiting for. The boy did not smile or change expression in reply. But his gaze shifted to Madelyne. Alex felt his arms flex around her protectively. It wasn't fair. She'd never truly had a chance. 

Maddie pulled back in his arms, looking at him with a mixture of hope and trepidation. 

"I could help you," she said. He looked into her beautiful green eyes and shook his head slightly. The hope faded to be replaced with dawning comprehension. 

"No, I think it's one of those sink or swim kind of things. Me versus the Nexus," he said to her, wanting to say so many other things instead. "But I appreciate the offer." 

She raised a hand and stroked his face in the way he remembered so well. Delicately tracing her fingers down his cheek, lingering on his lips, then his chin. He smiled for her but it soon faded again. She smiled weakly back. 

"Thank you, Alex," she said softly. She knew what had to happen. It was obvious, and there'd never been any question of her ability to pick up on things. She was a very smart woman. She leaned forward and stroked her cheek against his. Not kissing him, but just feeling him. After a long moment, she stepped out of his arms. He watched her sadly. 

"It's what I have to do, Maddie," he said, voice anguished. "Are you ready?" 

"I'd rather be free this way than hurt you again," she said with a short nod, her voice low and intent. The pain in her gaze was less and he was grateful for that at least. She straightened up, lifting her chin proudly, green eyes clear. She was so beautiful that he almost broke. But it would be wrong. Selfish. She was already gone. This would just make certain of it. 

So instead, he looked inward, something that was hard for him to do, and fumbled for the Nexus. It responded with a twitch and a surge of power. Not power like his plasma bursts, but a more mental kind of power, vaguely familiar from years of living around telepaths. Great, just what he needed. Psychic powers. As if his head wasn't messed up enough already. 

He opened his eyes and looked at the shade of Madelyne Pryor. All that was left of a once powerful and vital woman. Tempted, for just one more moment, to draw her back completely. And he could do it too, he knew, with the Nexus. Make her whole again. But that wouldn't be fair. There was nothing in this reality for her any longer except hatred and fear. And she understood that as well. 

"Go to your rest, Maddie," he said softly. "Go and I promise no one will trouble you again." 

"Alex," she said, hope and longing and regret all tied up in that single utterance. 

"I know," he replied, voice cracking. "Goodbye, Maddie." Then, before he could try to twist his way out of it a third time, he touched the new power inside him. There was no flash, no blast but the shade of Madelyne quivered as if a rock had been dropped into still water. Her gaze locked briefly with his, forgiving, lost, loving; mercifully she closed her eyes. Her head tipped back and she seemed serene. Then the Nexus surged and she was gone. Forever. 

His heart thundered in his chest as he stared into empty air. Grief struck him and he fell to his knees, crying out, hands balled into fists against the soft rug beneath him. And he sobbed out his pain. After a while, he felt a hand on his back and looked over, through his tears, to see Nate crouched beside him. Somber and pale. 

"Thank you for fixing my mistake, Alex," the boy said. 

"Your mistake?" Alex gasped, fighting back his sorrow. She'd really died a long time ago, but only now could she truly rest. 

"I brought her here in the first place, opened her up to more torment even though I didn't know what I was doing to her at the time. It was my fault." Regret was strong in the boy's eyes. And compassion. 

Alex took a deep shuddering breath, wiped at the tears on his face. "Well, I owed her anyway. And I got to say goodbye, at least." 

Nate just continued to crouch beside him, watching him closely. Joseph loomed quietly in the background. After a final deep breath, Alex glanced between the two of them. They appeared quite solid now. He could still feel the warmth of Nate's hand on his back. 

"Okay, so what about you two?" 

"We are a little different," Nate said with a rueful grin, shooting a glance at Joseph. "You can't dissipate me without risking the loss of everyone on the planet – I'm kind of mixed in rather tightly with human life now. And Joseph is the magnetosphere. The Nexus just lets us pretend to be alive again." 

"What about the others I saw? Do I need to send them away too?" 

"No, I don't think so. Just don't let the Nexus call them any further." 

"And if I do see them, send them away?" 

"Something like that." 

Alex rolled over and sat down, wrapping his arms around his knees and staring intently at Nate. Face pale and streaked with tears that he made no attempt to hide. Why feign impassiveness in the presence of the dead? Or whatever they were. They didn't need to be impressed. And he was through trying to be someone he wasn't. 

"I'm going to see things I don't want to see, aren't I?" he asked quietly, not taking his gaze away from Nate's mismatched one. Surprise and respect flared briefly there. 

"Most likely." 

"Can you teach me how to control it?" 

The boy shrugged. Alex sighed in frustration, then glared at Joseph as he spat, "I'm no psychic." 

"No, but you have strength of will that you have not fully explored yet. What you did here was difficult, and I applaud you for it," the man who wore Magneto's face said. Alex searched the calm gray gaze, looking for mockery or disgust, finding nothing save quiet admiration. "Yet you now have a heavy burden. The Nexus is power. And with great power comes great responsibility. You must be very careful how you use it in the future. If you use it." 

"You spent a lot of time around Storm, didn't you?" Alex said wryly. Joseph raised a snowy brow in mild surprise, then glanced curiously at Nate. The boy shrugged again and rolled his eyes. Alex almost laughed. "That crap's already occurred to me, guys. I'll be careful. I didn't want this, but I know ignoring it won't make it go away. That never worked with my mutant power, so why should it work with this damned thing?" 

Nate sat back and wrapped his arms around his legs as well, a reflection of Alex's pose. Then he laid his head sideways on his own knees, watching Alex. Joseph stood square on both feet with his arms crossed over his broad chest. Neither of them showed signs of fading. Was it the Nexus still? He touched it cautiously but neither shade wavered. Maybe they weren't shades, as Nate had suggested, but something else entirely. Echoes, perhaps. Or residues of their own powers. He wished he'd paid more attention now over the years when the Professor or Jean or Betsy had gone off on one of their periodic lectures about the Psychic Plane and matters metaphysical as they applied to psionics. But it was too late for that. He'd have to stumble along on his own. Something told him he'd better keep his secret. For now. 

"Are you two around for the duration?" Alex asked. Nate pursed his lips thoughtfully and glanced at Joseph. It was the big man's turn to shrug, apparently. Without answers forthcoming, Alex suddenly realized just how tired he was. He climbed to his feet wearily, drained by the emotion and the strange effort involved in sending Maddie to her rest. 

"I'm going to bed now. You guys go do whatever you need to do," he said vaguely, waving a hand at the open air. "If you're here when I wake up, we'll talk more." Then he drew the mesh screen closed over the dying fire and stumbled off to the ground floor guest room nearby. He'd chosen this room simply because it was easy to heat and it wasn't Scott and Jean's room. Without bothering to strip he crawled under the thick covers, pulled them over his head, and promptly fell deeply asleep. 

Nate Grey walked into the bedroom and sat in the chair beside the bed, ready to guard his uncle's sleep. Joseph stood at his shoulder. Both of them silent and still as they waited patiently for Havok to wake up. 

- - - to be continued - - -


	2. Part 2

Not All Who Wander Are Lost - Part 2 by paxnirvana  Format for use with submitting fanfic. Not All Who Wander Are Lost - Part 2 by paxnirvana 
    
    Rating: R [mature themes]
    Characters: Alex Summers, Nate Grey
    Archive: If you like it, just ask me.

Author's Note: This deals with a hard topic - death. 16 million isn't just a number, Mr. Grant Morrison. It's real people, within the boundaries of your story, and there are harsh consequences to killing that many people. And you better not forget that. 9/30/01 

Spoiler notes: Mirrors events of recent New X-Men "E is for Extinction" arc.

Disclaimer: Marvel owns it all. I'm just pretending. They make the money and I don't even pretend to do that.

* * * * *

It was the smell of fresh brewed coffee that finally woke him. Alex Summers stirred under the crumpled blankets, a leg hanging outside the covers awkwardly. The air was cold, but not as frigid as he might have expected it to be. The room was gray and dim, not full light at all, and he could hear the storm still raging outside. Shadows moved in the corners. He ignored them, lifting his head to sniff deeply. That was definitely coffee he smelled. 

He scrambled out of bed, suddenly alarmed. Who could be making coffee? He was here in Scott and Jean's Anchorage house alone. A pulse of heat ran through him as he tested his cosmic charge. Thankful, for once, that his mutant power wasn't dependent solely on the sun, as Scott's seemed to be, but built up from all the various forms of cosmic radiation that reached the earth's surface. 

Cautiously, he padded to the door, pausing only briefly to stare at the carefully banked fire in the bedroom fireplace. It was radiating just enough heat to keep the room from being dangerously cold. Had he done that? The last clear thing he remembered was falling onto the bed and pulling the blankets over his head. That and a poignant memory of sad green eyes. 

The door was already open a crack, so he pushed it carefully open, peering cautiously into the main room. Then he let his breath out in a disgusted sigh. 

Nate Grey, still wearing a pair of tattered black slacks but this time with the addition of a long black jacket over his bare shoulders, stood in front of the main fireplace. He was still barefoot. A cheerful, and recently stoked, fire burned there. There was a cup of coffee cradled between his pale hands. The boy had the grace to look guilty as Alex pushed the door wide, then the gall to shoot him a bold smile as he lifted the cup to his lips and took an appreciative sip. His mismatched eyes rolled closed in bliss. 

Alex growled. "There better be more where that came from, Grey." 

Nate lifted his head, a contented smile on his face, then laughed outright at the murderous look his uncle shot him. The boy jerked his head toward the kitchen. 

"Didn't you check the freezer? That's where all good coffee snobs keep their beans." 

"Damn," Alex muttered as he stumbled toward the kitchen tripping over his sagging socks. "Should have known. Cable's been here. He's the worst damn coffee freak I've ever met." 

"Must be genetic," Nate said flippantly. 

"Yeah, you should know, _Cable Light_," Alex threw back over his shoulder. Nate just gave a short bark of laughter. 

"God, Nathan would go ballistic if he heard you say that." 

Alex ignored the boy as he lunged for the coffeepot. He'd gone more than a day now without coffee, and life, frankly, just wasn't worth living without it. He quickly poured himself a cup and let his mutant power drain just enough heat from the scalding liquid to make it drinkable. He normally took it with a splash of cream, but the deprived couldn't afford to be choosy. He downed half of it, sighing in relief when he came up for air. 

"You're just as bad, _uncle_," Nate said from behind him, tone teasing. Alex turned around, leaning against the counter to stare at the boy where he lounged in the doorway. Since he had half a cup in him, Alex no longer thought it necessary to fry the ungrateful brat where he stood. He had brewed an entire pot, after all. 

Then he blinked at Nate in mild surprise. 

"I didn't think the dead drank coffee," Alex said, gaze narrow. Nate laughed again. 

"Not dead," he said, lifting the cup and saluting with it before taking another sip. "Spread around kind of thin, but definitely not dead." 

"Okay, what the hell is that supposed to mean?" 

"You want the four issue mini-series version or the shaman-psychic version?" 

Alex snorted and glared over the rim of his cup. "The English version." 

"Right," Nate laughed. Then he took a deep breath, his golden eye flashing with either mirth or anger and began, "Aliens wanted to suck the life-force out of all the people on Earth. But only a pure life-force. Me, being the reality-displaced little shaman killjoy that I am, decided to interfere with their plan, seeing as I am actually rather fond of some of those same people they were planning to suck dry." 

He rolled his eyes as if to imply he shouldn't have bothered. Alex shook his head in amused disgust, not letting it interrupt his coffee drinking. 

"So I, um, spread myself into the life-force of Earth, contaminating it for their purposes and toasting the lead alien in the process. However, there was a little flaw with my solution that didn't occur to me at the time. I went into every person that was alive then. But living things die. They die naturally, not just when their life-force is sucked out by aliens. So now whenever anyone dies, my own little bit of life-force is released. And it floats off looking for the other little bits of me. There's still a really huge chunk of me missing, of course, but enough is already out there in the in-between spaces so that the Nexus could bring me back together. As long as I stay close to it, that is." 

Alex just stared at him during this final discourse, eyebrows raised. Occasionally he'd lift the cup to his mouth and sip more coffee. Then when Nate finally fell silent, he stared at him for a moment or two longer, quietly drinking his coffee. He drained the cup, frowned down into it, turned and refilled it. Then he turned back, shrugged his shoulders as he gave a short laugh. 

"Ooo-kay, that's not any crazier than some of the shit I've done lately," Alex said, fighting back a smile. He failed finally on the smile. Then he began to chuckle, then to laugh out loud. He eventually had to set his cup down on the counter to keep from spilling it as he roared for a long while. He laughed long enough that Nate was soon shaking his head and laughing along too, eyes rolling. 

Then, abruptly, Alex sobered, looked up and his damp eyes flared with pain. 

"Did I kill Maddie last night?" he asked, voice thick. Nate's own laughter disappeared, his expression grave as his slim body shuddered. 

"No, Alex, she's been dead a long time. You just gave her peace." 

He stared at Nate, expression bleak, eyes haunted. "I wanted to bring her back. I wanted to. . . shit, I don't know. It was never good between us here. Desperate, dangerous, wrong - but not good. It couldn't be. Too much baggage." 

Nate stayed silent. Alex took a deep breath, then picked up his coffee again and took a gulp. Trembling slightly from leftover emotion and the dump of caffeine onto a painfully empty stomach. He felt delicate, fragile. As if he'd shake apart if pushed. His cosmic charge was building as well. He'd have to do something about that later, though his control had improved dramatically during his time with the Six. Or maybe it had finally come from feeling he didn't dare fail Scotty. 

"Do you cook?" Alex asked. 

Nate frowned and shook his head. "No. And actually, I don't think I eat now anyway." 

"Really?" Alex raised his brow at the cup in the boy's hand. "You're drinking coffee." 

"Habit," Nate said with a sheepish smile. "And I brewed it mostly to get you out of bed. You slept for fourteen hours you know." 

"Did I?" Alex said, raising both brows now. "No wonder I'm starved." 

At that he turned his attention to the pantry, grateful that Scott was as anal as he was. It was fully stocked with both canned and dried goods of all descriptions. Never leave a bolt-hole without adequate supplies was one of Scott's rules. Something he'd learned in the future, probably, when he and Jean had been time-slipped to take care of Nathan Christopher as a boy growing up in the hellish future era he'd been exiled to. Now, Alex understood the pain Scott had endured to make the choice to send his son into the future. Alex was feeling that pain too. Scotty was as lost to him as Nathan had been to Scott. And there were no friendly Askani to suck him over to the other dimension to let him raise his son. There was only the Nexus, which he had no idea how to really control. 

Shaking his head to clear those dark thoughts he dug out cans and set about preparing himself something to eat. Nate Grey remained in the doorway, watching silently, staying out of his way. Understanding somehow, that he needed the silence right then. Well, the boy was a telepath. He'd probably picked it out of his head. He ignored that as well, heating food, dishing it up, then taking it out into the main room to eat it in front of the fire there. 

He felt better after eating. 

Nate joined him after he took his dishes back into the kitchen, coming out to sit on the rug in front of the fire and watch him intently with that mismatched gaze as he finished the last of the coffee. Blue and gold. He examined the boy curiously in return. He looked solid. Real. But he didn't need to eat, didn't seem to feel the cold, didn't sleep. It was time to start questioning again. 

"The Nexus brought you here, and Joseph. . . hey," he looked around curiously, flinching only slightly as shadows and shapes moved on their own again around the edges of the room. Some took on vaguely human shapes, others remained flashes, impressions only. But none of them resolved into a tall man with long white hair. "Where is Joseph?" 

Nate shrugged, a faintly uneasy look on his face. It surprised Alex. "He comes and goes." 

"Yeah, but goes where?" 

"I don't know," Nate said soberly. "I can't sense him unless he's here." 

"Can you sense other shades?" Nate's gaze sharpened and he glanced around warily. 

"Not very well. Why do you see some?" 

"Yeah," Alex said, trying to keep from looking directly at any of them. "They're always there now." He focused on the boy instead. Nate closed his eyes and appeared to be concentrating. After a moment, he opened his eyes again and shook his head, his expression puzzled and a little concerned. 

"I can't feel them. Either they aren't very strong or I guess there just isn't enough of me here yet, even with the Nexus." 

"Guess so," Alex said, feeling vaguely disappointed. He'd been hoping, he supposed, that Nate would have more answers for him. He'd seemed to have some last night. "You don't know what's really going on with the Nexus any more than I do, do you?" 

Nate stared up at him, his face looking very young, very pale in the gray light of day. He sighed deeply. 

"No," the boy admitted. Alex lowered his head into his hands, letting out a long, tired breath. 

"Great. And I've been out of this reality for so long I don't even know where to begin." 

"You could call Dad." 

The quiet statement made Alex lift his head and stare at the boy in astonishment. "You call Scott _Dad_?" 

"Mostly to annoy Nathan, but why the hell not?" Nate said with a defiant gleam in his eye, looking every inch his presumed eighteen years in that instant. Then he shrugged, suddenly sad. "He's the closest thing I've got." 

Alex laughed shortly, giving Nate a bitter smile, "And I'm sure you're close too, aren't you?" 

"Well, in a way," the boy said quietly. "He let himself be possessed by Apocalypse - to save me." 

"What?" Alex yelped, surging to his feet. He stared down at the boy on the rug, eyes wide with outraged horror. Nate sighed heavily and climbed to his feet, anguish clear on his face. 

"I don't have many details, since I got snagged by aliens soon after when my powers were nullified, but Scott took my place as sacrifice. Apocalypse had managed to survive for so long by possessing other mutants - and he wanted to use me as his next host." 

Alex blinked in horrified shock, staring at the shade of a boy he'd been told was one of the most powerful telepathic/telekinetic combinations to ever exist, then he sagged back down on the couch. More powerful than anything the world had ever seen before. And just imagining that power wielded by the Apocalypse of this reality was enough to make Alex's heart stutter. Scott had seen that too. Seen the potential for ultimate destruction and acted in the only way he would have been able to. By sacrificing himself. 

"So Scott. . . let Apocalypse in," Alex stated, his voice faint. Overwhelmed by the magnitude of his brother's actions. Fear, grief, admiration raced through him with sickening intensity, followed closely by sheer horror. 

"Yes." 

"God. . ." Alex let his head fall back against the couch, eyes screwed shut as he tried to imagine the horrors his brother must have endured. He'd been possessed before himself. He understood the utter violation of self, the rape of one's very soul. And for this to happen to Scott. . . the poster boy for self-control. . . he could imagine his brother's devastation. He ached for Scott. 

". . .had very little to do with it." He opened his eyes at Nate's soft words and stared blankly at him for a moment, stomach churning. Guilt and pain and regret were plain on the boy's face, eyes haunted. Alex knew the same emotions were mirrored in his own eyes. 

"But you wanted me to call him . . ." 

"Jean and Nathan found him after a year or so. Scott was fighting En-Sabah-Nur. Resisting, but amnesiac because of it. They discovered Scott before he could be completely overcome and the three of them psychically dragged Nur out and destroyed him." Nate's face became still, intent, pained, his body rigid, fists clenched at his sides. As if, like Cable, it had been ingrained in him to resist Apocalypse and his failure to be involved in the monster's downfall was actually physically painful to him. Maybe it was. 

"And Scott? How is he?" 

"I don't really know," Nate admitted softly. "I was distracted by. . . other things. . . and then I became this." 

Alex leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, staring into the fire. The silence lengthened. 

Memories, of this world and another, churned together in his mind. X-Factor, a government sanctioned team that had become the pawn of humans that hated and feared them, using them shamelessly against their own kind. The Six, twisted outlaw heroes who still somehow tried to fight the good fight, even sometimes if it was against their own base natures. The joyful, reckless, Starjammer Scott of the other universe. The stoic, focused brother he'd barely come to know late in life here. The other world's twisted Xavier, a man intent on using psionics to dominate mankind, feeling it was only his due to rule the world. And the Xavier who had become Onslaught here when he violated his own ethics and stripped Magneto of his mind. Maddie; both his wife and Scott's, a danger put to rest. Electra; potential unrealized. Lorna; a tortured past, a love battered and strained perhaps beyond recovery. Jean; a powerful psi, his brother's wife, a desperate pawn. His beloved own son; Scotty. Scott's own strange pan-dimensional children; Nathan Christopher, Rachel Summers, Nate Grey. Then the Nexus. 

His mind whirled with half-formed fears, suspicions and the agonizing loss of something he'd not realized he'd still counted so heavily on; his brother's fortitude. 

Because Scott couldn't be the Scott he'd known anymore. Not if Apocalypse had possessed him. Even if he'd managed to eject him somehow. The battle would have scarred and changed him. And for Scott, that alone would be failure. He felt tears slide down his cheek. He reached up and angrily wiped them away. 

"Shit," he said, his voice shaky, heart heavy. "I can't go back. Anywhere." 

Nate shifted slightly beside him, crossing his arms over his lean chest, but stayed silent. Alex stared blankly into the fire, barely seeing the shapes that formed briefly in flame and shadow, teased his mind, then vanished. Ephemeral. Transitory. Like life. 

* * * * *

He had no idea how long he'd sat there, staring, brooding, but eventually a sharp shower of sparks from a breaking log broke his reverie. He became aware of several things then; his cosmic charge was dangerously high, he had to take a piss, and Nate Grey was gone. 

He stood, looking around the room vaguely, not overly concerned. He took care of business in the bathroom, glancing briefly into the mirror and running his hand over the rough growth on his face. His beard was just long enough to itch, and still sharp. Shaving was too much effort right then. He shuffled out into the main room, feeling the energy high inside him. Now to do something about his cosmic charge. 

Even with the fire, the house was cold. He hadn't bothered to turn the heat up or many of the lights, not wanting to draw attention to his occupation of the house. Even though it was outside town, set in the forest a few miles away, a nosy neighbor could notice and come around. He still wasn't quite ready to acknowledge the outside world, or have it bothering him. 

There was another option. Alex stood in the center of the living room and concentrated. He could project energy from any part of his body, not just down his arms. When it was out of control, his power radiated out in waves from his whole body. He'd gotten better about that in recent months, but he'd never tried exactly what he was going to do now. Rather than a focused plasma burst, he allowed his power to flow out in a soft wave of purely thermal radiation. Slowly warming the air in the room, then the whole house. 

It was a painstaking process, to allow only so much energy out when it wanted to pour from him in a wild rush, blasting and destroying. He fought his power, wrestled it into submission; elated when for one of the first times in his life he tamed it, forced it to do exactly as he wished. 

When he was done he opened his eyes and looked around. No damage. The floor under him wasn't even singed. And the air was nearly hot around him. Sweat started on his body. He tugged his sweatshirt off over his head and grinned foolishly. Proud, for once, of his mutant power. Pretty useful in Alaska, this. 

"Well done." Alex whirled to stare at the source of those soft words. Joseph stood by the fire, face somber. 

"Where the hell have you been? And where's Nate?" Alex demanded, gaze narrowed. 

"I have been where I always am," Joseph said enigmatically. "And Nate Grey is not mine to control." 

Alex blinked at him, then shook his head as he laughed bitterly. "Well, that helps. Thanks." 

"I am not here just to help you, Havok," Joseph said, gray eyes steady. "I have other concerns now." Alex crossed his arms over his chest and met that gaze. 

"Then why are you here?" 

"The Nexus draws me," he said. Then he shifted uneasily. "And there is something moving in the world, Havok. Something dangerous. It threatens everything and everyone we know." 

"And it doesn't help me to tell me that?" Alex asked, sighing and rolling his eyes. Then tensing at Joseph's grave expression. "Well, what is it? Alien invasion? The Brood again? The Phalanx? Crap, please not Galactus." 

Joseph blinked once, slowly, and his eyes narrowed as if puzzled. "It is difficult for me to recall life," the big man said hesitantly. "It has been long since I breathed and the place where I exist now is vastly different. But I do remember loyalty and friendship. . . and love. There are ones I do not wish to see harmed. I fear for them." 

"Why? From what?" Alex demanded. Joseph frowned, white brows meeting. He shook his head tightly. 

"I do not know. I only know there is a disturbance in the magnetosphere. Large. Deadly. More than one." 

"Shit," he said in disgust. "You're not being much help, Joseph." 

"No, but I feel something too." Alex looked over at the stairwell that led upstairs. Nate Grey, dressed now in jeans and a black tee shirt, a pair of scuffed work boots on his feet, approached, his expression anxious, golden eye flaring with power. 

Alex glanced between the two of them, confused, alarmed and unable to find a focus for it. He shook his head angrily and clenched his fists. Sweat ran down his bare chest, tickling him annoyingly. Now the house was too damn warm. How could he get better information? Vague warnings and bad feelings aside, he needed facts, something he could act on. He scanned the room, desperate, then froze. 

A woman stood in the far corner. One of the many shades that plagued him now, but this one manifesting strongly. She was older, thin and frail, her hair gray and drawn back in an old-fashioned bun at her neck. Her eyes were strangely blank. To his shock, he recognized her. 

"Destiny," he gasped. Her chin lifted and she gave him a brief nod. Then her blind gaze locked onto him, empty, sad. He shivered. 

"Alex Summers, death comes soon. It will be hard. But you must not fall before it in despair or the Nexus will consume you." 

"What do you mean?" he began, taking a step toward her. She lifted a hand toward him, palm out, a tormented look on her face. In the other hand she held a book, clutched close to her chest. Strange tears of blue and silver gleamed on her wrinkled cheeks. He stopped. 

"Please, come no closer!" Her voice was sharp, frightened. "The Nexus calls, but I dare not answer. I seek only to warn you, to try to prevent ultimate chaos. You must be strong, Alex Summers. Stronger than you ever thought to be. Much depends on you." 

"I don't understand. . ." he said desperately, voice rising. Destiny shook her head, crying openly now. She lifted her arms, opening her hands wide as if warding him away. The book she held fell heavily to the floor, the binding split and pages spilled out, blowing away in some unseen wind to disappear like ashes. 

"I cannot stay, and I cannot say more. Be strong, Alex Summers," she said, still shaking her head. Then she backed away, fading as she moved until she was gone. He spun around, looking wildly between Joseph and Nate. Both of them seemed disturbed. Nate more than Joseph; the boy paced back and forth, breathing hard. Shaking his head. His lean body trembling, face white. 

"Something's not . . . right. I'm coming together somehow. Alex. . . dying. . . people are dying somewhere. . . lots of them. . . no. . . " Nate threw his head back and screamed in agony, the sound primal and raw. 

Alex moved toward him, not knowing exactly what he could do but wanting to try something, anything when the Nexus surged inside him, staggering him - flooding him with pain-fear-glee-despair-terror-anger. 

Fear helpless crushing. 

Agony fire burning consuming devouring. 

Satisfaction pleasure need consuming. 

Death rising surrounding dragging. 

The agony of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dead and dying. He screamed loud and long, falling to his knees, beating the floor with his fists. Trying to sense the pain it caused, as he was buried in the death agony of others, not feeling his own hands, his own body, lost, lost in the wash of burning roiling relentless death. 

Death coming to hundreds of thousands, now millions, the numbers overpowering him, drowning him, as he felt them rush toward him, toward the Nexus. And Destiny's hurried words made a horrible sense. . . the shades, the shades of the disbelieving agonized dead. Coming for him. Coming to the Nexus. Helpless, on his knees. Arms around him, holding him close. Flesh and a terrified heartbeat. 

Someone calling his name. 

"No! Who. . ." 

Faces rushed him, and horror of horrors, he recognized some. Genoshan. From Genosha. Mutants. Mutates. People he'd known, worked with, fought. Dying, dead, betrayed. Lost. Destroyed. Clawing at him, demanding. He screamed again, helpless, engulfed. 

"Alex!" 

Who was that? He didn't know. He was dead. All of them dead. A girl who breathed water. A boy with four arms. A man who could speak with animals. A woman with green hair. A man who could mold plasma. A magistrate. A boy with corpse-pale skin. A street-cleaner. A telepath. A shipping clerk. A girl with enhanced senses. A geneticist. Too many. Dead. Coming to him as the Nexus. All lost, all broken, all dead. 

He was shivering and shaking in aching agony. Then afraid, briefly, that his plasma energy had burst from him, destroying the house around him, letting the storm inside, but no, his power had been diverted, was being sucked down into the Nexus, fueling it. 

//Alex!// A surge in his mind. A flare of power. A powerful mental link. The Nexus arcing to this new source, hungry. Hands on him. Burning hands. Living or dead? //Think of your son, Alex! Think of Scotty. Fight!// 

Scotty. He clung to the image of the boy desperately. His son. His hope. His joy. He would not fail his son. Could not. Never again. He fought his way through the maelstrom of death, only now feeling the pain in his hands, the sweat pouring from his body, the raw scrape of his throat as he voiced a pointless denial over and over again. 

He looked up and saw Nate Grey crouched in front of him hands on his shoulders, fingers digging in painfully. The boy was wild eyed and desperate, trembling with torment, golden eye flaring with energy that was going nowhere, useless. No. That was being sucked away from him, into the Nexus. 

//Alex! Help me. . .// 

Beyond him were images, shades, shadows pressing close. Filling the room. Burned, savaged forms. Horrifying shades of the dead. Known and unknown. Too many. And he could feel, could sense that the fabric of reality itself was now on the line. The boundary between life and death threatened, narrowing, worn away. Too many dead, too much power. 

The Nexus was calling them but it was his power, and somehow Nate's, that was giving them substance, form, being. He could feel it. The energy streamed out of him, sucking him dry, emptying him, emptying them both. Leaving him hollow, bare; but stripping away Nate's very existence, pulling his essence out of the living as well, destroying him. 

"No!" Alex screamed, fighting it, slowing the drain. Wrestling his power back under his control, frantic to master it as never before. Digging deep to find the strength to ignore the horror around him, the strength to deny the Nexus it's blind, wild feeding on him, on them both. To disregard the anger of the dead, denied. Nate moaned weakly, meeting his angry glare. 

Blue to blue alone, the gold drained away. Not even a mental voice any longer. 

He reached up, ignoring the bloody mess of his hands to grasp the boy's fading shoulders in return, holding on to him alone as the half-solid shades of the dead piled up against them both, clawing at them, trying to draw his attention, begging him for revenge, for a chance, for life. Their voices deafening him, overwhelming him. Heard his own name screamed over and over again. 

"Stop! Stop it! Go away, go on! I can't save you. . ." Sobbing with the horror of it. 

Before him, Nate groaned, mute, helpless. He could feel the boy's personality, his will, his strength passing through him and fought it, struggling to draw Nate Grey's essence back out of the Nexus yet shut out the dead around them. The boy becoming entwined in his despairing mind with Scotty, his son. He refused to fail him, to let him go. 

"All of you! Leave, pass on!" Alex screamed, teeth clenching painfully. "You're dead - I can't help you!" Holding desperately to Nate, to the image of Scotty, to the need to live, to survive, to endure. To not be overcome, even by death. 

He was a Summers. He would never surrender. 

He drew it back, the power flaring painfully inside of him. His and Nate's. He shunted the power ruthlessly away from the Nexus, focusing instead on the boy. Putting him back, making him whole. Using him as outlet rather than the dead that still surrounded them. And slowly, painfully, the dead began to fade, to wail, to turn away. 

Then, abruptly, nothing. Silence. As if a switch had been thrown, the shadows of the dead were gone. He felt a snapping recoil inside, then the Nexus was still. 

A hollow roaring filled his ears; the throb of blood, the faint, uneven rasp of Nate's breathing, his own sobbing breaths. He held the boy's limp body tightly in his arms, his head rolling. Unconscious. Alex fell back against the couch, sliding down on his butt, staring blindly at the room, cradling Nate against him. 

Alive. 

They were both still alive. 

"Nate?" he whispered finally, stroking a shaking hand across the short hair. The boy didn't stir, but he could feel his heart beating steadily against his own chest. Beating. Had it beat before? He didn't know for sure. 

"Nate, kid, c'mon, wake up," Alex muttered, feeling his own strength draining away. Tired, he was so tired. Worn away by the struggle. A struggle he'd won, somehow. It was almost unbelievable. 

"A-alex?" Slurred, slow, but a reply. Uncoordinated movement against him, then the head lifted. Eyes, blue and gold again flashed at him. "What h-happened?" 

"I stopped it, I guess, whatever it was," Alex said, his voice hoarse and raw. From screaming, for who knew how long. "Something happened to Genosha." 

"What? How do you know?" 

"I saw people I knew," he said, closing his eyes wearily. The horror and pain buried behind a wall of exhaustion. But it was there. Waiting to rend him with grief. 

Nate moved against him slowly, sliding out of his unresisting arms, and falling down onto the floor beside him. Head thumping on the hardwood floor. The boy groaned. 

"That hurt," he said, faintly astonished, then paused. "Oh, hell, I think I'm alive again." 

"Yes," Alex said, voice fading. "It was you or them." The blood roared in his ears. He couldn't lift his hand, his body like lead. So tired. Drained. He couldn't feel even the faintest trace of his cosmic charge. 

"Alex, are you okay?" Sharp concern. A hand under his head, on his shoulder, easing him down flat to the floor. He went without a struggle. 

"No. Never be okay again. . ." he breathed as consciousness faded into merciful blackness. 

* * * * *

He woke briefly once to fire-lit darkness, the softness of a bed, and the warmth of an unknown body snuggled close against his back. His mind wandering still, hung up in strange, disturbing dreams. Memories of pain, of loss. A shadow loomed beside the bed. 

"Lorna, I'm so sorry," he breathed to it. The shadow nodded once, then turned away and was gone. 

He closed his eyes, feeling tears slip slowly down his cheeks. He slept again. 

* * * * *

He woke again to find himself alone in the bed. Weak, slanted sunshine flooded around the window blinds. Only ordinary shadows lurked in the corners of the room. His bladder was screaming at him. He stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, not bothering with a light. Finished, he groped with inexplicably sore hands back to bed just as a dim form appeared in the doorway. 

"Alex?" 

"No," he mumbled as he climbed back in. "Not yet." Then he drew the covers over his head and fell into oblivion once more. 

* * * * *

The last time he woke was when someone climbed into the bed beside him. Someone cold. He gasped, eyes flying open in shock. The room was dark, save for the light of the banked fire. Astonished, he turned his head and stared into worried mismatched blue and gold eyes. 

"Nate! What the hell are you doing?" he demanded groggily, flinching away from the boy's frozen feet, his icy limbs. 

"Getting warm," the boy chattered, following him across the bed. He wrapped his arms around Alex's shoulders, pressing close, seeking warmth. Since he'd retreated to the edge, he could either roll himself out onto the cold floor, or shove the boy away. Alex opted to give him a shove, a reaction which didn't seem to bother him. Nate settled for the warm spot in the middle of the bed and a big chunk of the covers, watching him with pleased relief. 

"Finally awake enough to give me crap about my cold feet," the boy said with a grin. "It's about time." 

Cool air wafted across his back and shoulders, making him shiver. Alex tugged on the covers hard, managing to rescue some of them as he glared at the boy. What the hell was he doing in the same bed? 

"What do you mean?" 

"You've been out cold for two days. I was starting to get worried." 

"So you climbed into bed with me?" he snapped. The boy looked wounded for an instant, then Alex felt a quick brush on his mind. Reading his vaguely alarmed surface thoughts. 

"Geez, Alex, it's just for body heat," Nate laughed, his eyes dancing with wicked amusement. "We slept in a big pile all the time on the road back in my world." 

"Yeah, well, it's not something I'm used to," he grumbled, feeling foolish. Then he flashed onto a memory of Scotty climbing into his bed in the middle of the night when a nightmare woke him, cold little body curling trustingly up against his father's back, only then feeling secure enough to sleep. A sharp pang of loss shot through him. Scotty was worlds away. If he had a bad dream, he'd be on his own. The boy had never felt comfortable going to Maddie for that, choosing Alex over her even when he'd been uncertain about him after his arrival in the world. 

"What is it?" Nate asked, suddenly concerned, then Alex felt the gentle mind-touch again. This time he put up his shields. Nate flinched as he was shut out, looking vaguely wounded. "What?" 

"Don't pry," he snapped, but without any real heat. 

"Sorry. I was just worried." Wide, wounded look. A defensive burrowing down deeper into the blankets. 

He sighed and relented. Nate had been looking after him for the past few days. He certainly didn't deserve bad temper for his efforts. 

"I was just remembering the way my son would climb in bed with me after a bad dream," he explained quietly. Nate sighed deeply. 

"I don't remember my childhood, not really," the boy said wistfully. "And what I do remember probably isn't the truth. Sinister planted most of it, since I was force-grown in the vats." 

"Christ," Alex said wearily, laying an arm over his eyes. Just like Maddie. Poor kid. 

"You okay?" Nate asked softly. Alex moved his arm and glanced over at the boy. Knowledge beyond his years shown in those mismatched eyes. He wasn't really a boy, yet he was hardly a man either. There just wasn't an easy category for Nate Grey. 

"No. But I will be better. Eventually." 

Thoughtful silence fell. Blue and gold eyes examined him closely, but there was no further attempt at a mind-touch. 

"Do you want to know what happened?" 

Pain flared inside. He knew what had happened already. The dead had already passed him by. But there were details missing. The how. And the who. 

"Was it nuclear weapons?" he asked, feeling old and tired and disheartened. Would the hate never stop? 

"No," Nate said, eyes bright with anger. "It was two heavily altered Sentinels. Of unknown origin. And all human governments are on high alert, swearing vengeance." Alex blinked at him in shock. 

"What?" 

"Nobody knows who sent them. The Chinese are livid. They're about ready to start World War III. If those things surface near their borders, they just might." 

"Hell. Where are the X-Men?" 

"No sign," Nate said softly, then tapped the side of his head. "Do you want me to try to find them? Xavier? Or Jean?" 

Alex lay in silence for a moment, mind whirling. Then he slowly shook his head. 

"No." 

"No?" 

"I need to go to Genosha first." 

* * * * *

The attack came suddenly. He had finally hauled himself out of bed, much to Nate's dismay, and had showered, shaved and dressed, despite the fact that it was nearly four in the morning. The boy had hunkered back down in bed, refusing to leave his warm nest. Alex didn't try to force him. He needed some time alone. 

He was poking up the fire when a short, bald shade-creature leaped at him from the shadows, snarling and changing as it came. He spun, feeling the flare of the Nexus even as elongated hands tried to close around his neck. 

"Give it to me, you worthless mutant!" the shape hissed. He brought his hands up between the arms sharply, breaking the hold on his throat just enough so he could twist partly away. The limbs were soft, not completely real, but still astonishingly strong. Then, his cosmic charge ready, he blasted the creature across the room. To his shock, it bounced back, laughing thickly, shaking off a focused plasma burst like it was nothing. He coughed around his bruised throat, eyeing it warily as his mind raced. 

The normal dead weren't usually this tangible. They were actual shades, unless somehow the Nexus had been changed by recent events. He didn't want to consider that - that dead spirits might become solid around him forever. Whatever it was, it was still dead. He didn't have to hold back. 

"Pitiful fool," it crooned, bent over and stalking toward him from the shadows of the far side of the room. Clearly hunting him. "Obsolete and you don't even realize it. You can't stop me, not even in death. Give me the Nexus!" 

"You want it, ugly?" he gasped, then felt inside. The Nexus responded. "Eat it, then." 

He fed power to the Nexus and it roared in reply. A whirling rift appeared in the very fabric of reality in the middle of the room. The shade-creature fell back, hissing in surprise. Power surged. He pointed his hand at it and the rift moved. The creature dived away, faster than he could believe. Light spilled from the edges of the rift, illuminating the creature clearly. It was a short, twisted woman. Marked with large, ugly holes, almost like bullet holes, all down her naked form. The face and bald head strangely familiar. The eyes wide and almost luminous. She snarled at him, dodging away again. The rift moved too slowly and he was afraid to let it contact anything, not exactly certain what it would do. But whatever it was wouldn't be good. 

Then the creature froze and lifted completely into the air. 

"Alex!" 

He glanced over and saw a bare-chested Nate in the doorway to the bedroom, left eye spitting golden fire. Concentration fierce. "What the hell is it? I can't hold it long!" 

"No need," Alex said through gritted teeth as he brought the rift over the struggling form. It caught the shade in what looked like a disintegration field, slowly ripping it apart. He could feel the thing dissolving out of reality. Destroyed utterly. It screamed in mortal agony as it vanished. He gave the Nexus a final twist to make certain, sensing nothing but pure hatred from it even at the end. 

Then it was gone. 

He choked down on the Nexus-rift sharply, feeling it snatch at the tendrils of his power like a spoiled child as it reluctantly closed. Wanting more, wanting to expand, to devour reality if he'd let it. He slowly forced it closed, falling to his knees, gasping as he struggled with it. But his will was stronger. The rift shrank. 

Nate was calling his name, alarmed. 

"No psi-touch!" he managed to shout, remembering the Nexus' reaction to Nate's power before. "I've got it." Then with a final squeeze, he shut the Nexus down completely. He found himself on hands and knees on the floor, panting hard. After a moment, he lifted his head and shot Nate a reassuring, if weary, look. 

"What the hell was that?" the boy asked, eyes wide as he came over to Alex's side. "It was dead, wasn't it? Because I couldn't get a mental lock on it. I think we're damn lucky my telekinesis still could." 

"I don't know what that thing was when it was alive, but it sure was nasty dead," Alex agreed, rolling over to sit on the floor, feeling once again the extreme exhaustion brought on by any work with the Nexus. "I wonder who killed it first?" 

Nate shook his head slowly, eyes wide and kind of wild, then he spoke in a low, intent tone, "As shaman I could feel the Nexus, knew it existed. I skimmed the realities, keeping watch over it. But hell, Alex, you're _using_ it." 

"Runs in the family, I guess," Alex said wearily. 

Nate just smiled and shook his head. 

- - to be continued - -


	3. Part 3

Not All Who Wander Are Lost – Part 3 by paxnirvana  Format for use with submitting fanfic. Not All Who Wander Are Lost – Part 3  by paxnirvana 
    
    Rating: R [mature themes]
    Archive: If you like it, just ask me.
    Characters: Alex Summers, Nate Grey

Author's Notes: More troublesome topics; death, loss, regret. And I wanted an Alex!Muse, but I didn't really want him to take over my WHOLE sense of creativity... *sigh* … I guess I'm just a sucker for the Summers boys in * any * incarnation. 10/5/01

Oh, a bit late, but text in //slashes// is telepathic conversation. But you probably figured that out already. . . *shrugs*

Disclaimer: Marvel owns it all. I'm just pretending. They make the money and I certainly don't even pretend to do that.

* * * * *

Alex Summers was tired. Very very tired. Two days of sleep interrupted to banish some malign, twisted thing – a powerful ghost that didn't have the decency to stay dead. Another draw on the Nexus that left him drained and exhausted once again. The association was painfully clear; use the Nexus, fall unconscious. He only hoped that eventually he'd build up a resistance to the damn thing. His historical problems with his plasma powers seemed rather tame in comparison. 

Through it all, Nate Grey had watched over him. Feeding him, talking to him, snuggling up against his back at night in the bed; giving him a welcome human connection when the shades of the dead were their most demanding. 

Who was protecting who from the monsters in the dark? 

The boy was definitely alive again. Whatever he'd been before – an exceptionally strong ghost, an echo of his own power, a kind of energy life-form – somehow during the Death of Genosha, the Nexus had restored him. Drawn him out of the mass life-force of humanity and back into his own existence. 

After waking up once more from his Nexus-induced exhaustion, Alex was dismayed to find the main floor of the house empty. Outside, the blizzard had finally abated. It was a gray and overcast day. The storm had left behind sizeable drifts of snow. All of which were still pristine. No tracks leading away. No tracks at all. But then Nate was telekinetic and could fly. A lowering of mental shields and an urgently broadcast inquiry elicited an instant response from the young telepath. 

//Relax. I'm just in the attic, uncle,// Nate replied, amused. Alex remembered the state-of-the-art communications center Scott had hidden there and relaxed slightly. Nate had stayed in this house before, with Scott and Jean. He was familiar with the setup. 

//Leave a note next time,// Alex chided. Nate gave him a mental raspberry. Shaking his head in amusement, Alex ran his hand over his chin. Shaving was definitely necessary. He lifted his arm and sniffed cautiously. And a shower. He set about making himself less fragrant and more presentable again. 

After dressing in some more of Scott's stored clothes, he set about making food. The only thing Nate could be counted on for in the kitchen was coffee; the pot was reasonably fresh and still half-full. Alex smiled as he poured himself a cup and pondered the pantry. 

He found powered eggs and dried milk; unpalatable, but better than opening up a can of soup again. He set about making scrambled eggs. And some milk for his coffee. Black worked in a pinch, but he preferred it lightened. The eggs were easy to make. Then some juice. He even felt daring enough to try a boxed blueberry muffin mix. Just add water! So domestic. A pang of longing shot through him. Blueberry muffins were Scotty's favorite. Right after chocolate chip cookies. 

He let memories of the road trip they'd taken across the alternate American West flow through him. So many little things to learn about raising a child – many that had annoyed and frustrated him at the time – especially a highly intelligent child with an early-onset mutant power. What to feed him, how to keep him clean and dressed, how to entertain him. How to explain the danger of their lives to him without frightening him too much. How to comfort him when he failed. Even how to get him to brush his teeth properly at night. Most of the memories made him smile. It was impossible to put a finger on the exact moment when it had transformed from being a chore into a joy. When Electra's presence as nanny had been more of a fall-back than a necessity. 

He missed his son. More than he'd ever imagined he would. 

He had finished the eggs and was working on a bowl of instant oatmeal when Nate Grey wandered into the kitchen, sniffing deeply. Dressed in low-slung pants and a well-worn sweatshirt, feet stuffed into a pair of Jean's fluffy sheepskin slippers. Alex stifled a chuckle with a rueful shake of his head; they'd never fit Jean again. And he didn't want to be within three miles of her when she found out. 

"What's that smell?" the boy asked curiously. 

"I'm making blueberry muffins." 

Nate's brows rose in surprise. "They smell good." He wandered to the oven, crouched down and peered curiously through the glass window. Alex was struck again by the knowledge that Nate hadn't grown up in a normal way. The gene-tanks of Apocalypse weren't exactly anyone's ideal nurturing environment. And the boy had been hunted and tricked and misunderstood from the instant he'd arrived in this reality. With barely time to separate friend from foe, much less learn everyday details about the far kinder world he'd landed in. 

"Well, it's not hard. Read the box; measure water, stir, pour in pan, bake. Easy." 

Nate took a deep, appreciative breath. "How long 'til they're done?" 

"Ten more minutes." 

Nate looked longingly back into the oven. Alex smiled. He looked a lot like Scotty in that instant; eager and impatient. Young. Had _he_ ever been that young? He knew he had, but it seemed like such a very long time ago. 

"Strange news out there," Nate said after a minute or so of watching the muffins bake, his expression suddenly adult and grim as he looked over his shoulder. Alex sighed deeply. "A big piece of Amazon jungle blew up just after the attack on Genosha ended. Spy satellites picked up some images. I think Cyclops was there." 

"Red beams?" 

"Yeah, but _big. Really_ big. He must have just opened his eyes without a visor on. For a long time too." Nate's voice was subdued, almost awed. Cyclops' full power was staggering. Too often that was forgotten because he wielded it with such precision. Preferring finesse to brute strength. Apparently Scott had felt it necessary to cut loose on _something_ down there. The thought was chilling. 

"Destroying something completely, it sounds like. Maybe they found the Sentinel control center," Alex said as he continued to eat. He'd burned a lot of energy lately and hadn't been conscious enough to eat much. He needed to restore himself. 

"I don't know," Nate said, seating himself at the table. "There's the usual strange stories from all over the world. A huge underground fire in London reputed to be caused by mutants. A pop singer who's having some mutant's baby. A high-level scandal in the U.S. government that exposed some secret society plotting to take it over. An altercation on a beach in Spain that sounds suspiciously like X-Men activity. Then there's these new guys calling themselves X-Force, but _I_ don't know any of them. They do commercials and stuff." 

"Commercials?" 

"Yeah, it's like they're for rent or something." 

Alex frowned at that, but was still musing over Scott's actions in South America. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was Cyclops had found something deadly hidden in the jungle there. 

The buzzer for the stove went off, startling them both. Nate levitated out of his seat, left eye flaring wildly, ready for battle. Alex chuckled, grabbed a potholder and fished the muffin tin out of the oven. Then had to buffet Nate back with his shoulder as the kid crowded him eagerly, craning his head for a glimpse of the hot pastries. 

"Hey, they smell even better now," he said, grinning widely. "Gimme one." 

Alex mock frowned at him. "Didn't you eat earlier?" 

Nate shrugged and snatched a muffin out of the pan with his TK. "Yeah, but I'm always hungry." 

"They're hot," Alex warned even as he lifted one out of the pan for himself, letting his mutant power absorb the bulk of the heat until it was the perfect temperature. He bit into it with a deep, satisfied groan. Nate grimaced. 

"Is it cheating to use your mutant power on food?" He broke his own muffin open, whimpering as he sniffed the fragrant steam, waving the hot bread around frantically to cool it, an eager look on his face. Alex just laughed. And together they polished off the entire dozen muffins. 

* * * * *

They did little things for the rest of the day. Ordinary things. Laundry. Dishes. Hauled wood. Nate did most of that; his telekinesis coming in very handy for keeping warmth inside the house and feet and hands from getting cold. Then for dinner, Alex teased Nate into helping him prepare it. Taking a kind of strange satisfaction in the boy's delight over producing edible food. 

Then they'd sat in front of the fire in the living room, talking about whatever came to mind. Nate told him of his strange relationship with the death-absorbing Threnody, and only hesitantly relating his last disturbing encounter with her. Alex kept silent, suspecting that there was far more to Threnody's fluctuating weight than mere chance. Nate went on obliviously to relate his misadventures with the sprawling Shi'ar Empire, including his brief encounter with the Empress Lilandra herself. Alex talked about his life with Scotty and the Six, intriguing Nate with his tales of the vampires Bloodstorm and Gambit, a fatally powered Iceman and a tragically stupid Brute, avoiding any mention of the treacherous Fallen. 

Finally, they each fell into a comfortable silence, Alex staring into the fire, Nate curled up beside him sleepily on the couch. Peace and contentment reigned. 

So it was with a sense of real annoyance that Alex felt a brief tug on the Nexus, glaring as a grim Joseph strode toward him from the darkness. The big man glanced at a now-dozing Nate, frowning with something like envy, or even simple longing. Missing life, perhaps. 

"I was wondering if you'd show up again," Alex said quietly, not wanting to disturb the boy beside him. Joseph didn't respond immediately. He seemed uncomfortable, something he hadn't demonstrated before. Alex watched him with growing curiosity, and the start of concern. 

"Something is not . . . right. . . with Genosha," Joseph said, face working. Pain or puzzlement, it was difficult to tell. 

"You mean _other_ than every person living on it being killed?" Alex snapped quietly, glaring. 

"Yes." The gray eyes flared with brief anger. Surprising Alex. Each time he saw the man, he seemed subtly more alive, more human in his reactions. As if he were slowly re-learning what it was to react to himself, to others again. The tall man continued quietly, "Something is very wrong with the island itself – with it's magnetic field. I suspect that my . . . template's demise has affected it somehow." 

Alex stared at Joseph. Reading underneath what he was saying. Realizing with a sinking in his gut just how badly the Nexus was upsetting this world, this reality just as it had disrupted the world of the Six. Opening them all up to trouble unending. Unless he was prepared to do something about it. Something final. He sighed. One problem at a time. 

"And you can't go there to find out?" Alex asked. 

Joseph shook his head tightly, gray eyes cool, wary. His long white hair rippled with the motion. Alex was caught briefly by a remembered fact – something the Dark Beast had told him once; that the noble Magneto, the one who had fought on in Charles Xavier's name to the bitter end in the Age of Apocalypse, had worn his hair long, as Joseph did. 

"I do not believe that would be wise," Joseph said. "I have little cohesion away from the Nexus. I am little more than a directed amplification of the magnetic field. And that may just feed this . . . anomaly." 

Gray eyes met blue and perfect understanding passed between them. Alex sighed deeply. 

"Okay, we leave tomorrow." 

* * * * *

There weren't any planes going to Genosha. At least not passenger planes. Not any more. With the Shi'ar-enhanced computer system in the attic, Alex accessed one of X-Factor's hidden operating accounts to get the funds they needed. It was the least Val Cooper could do for him, he figured, since he'd 'died' on her watch. 

With that money he chartered a plane. Having a powerful telepath around who hadn't been raised on Xavier's 'don't touch' philosophy made life easier and gave him only a few pangs of guilt. They were in a hurry, and it was just so much simpler when there weren't awkward questions to field. He'd done far too much government paperwork for X-Factor. Being with the independent Six had spoiled him. It was better that the ordinary people he worked with saw exactly what he needed them to see, and even more importantly, only what _they_ needed to see. 

He flew the plane himself. Hours and hours of flying time in a dual turbo-prop. Boring. Slow. He missed having a near-supersonic jet at his disposal. Along the way, he diverted himself by trying to teach Nate how to fly a plane. But the boy was hopeless at it, as he teased him after several near-disastrous tries, a shame to the Summers genes. All Summers were pilots. Nate just rolled his eyes, folded his arms over his chest and said with a smirk, "Grey. The name is Grey. Jeez, old guy, get it right." Constant taking-off and landing to refuel as they hopped their way down the Aleutian Chain, then over to the Kamchatka Peninsula and down through Japan. Avoiding China, who was still bristling defensively, primed to beat off attack if the renegade Sentinels dared approach their shores. 

Then landing again, in Singapore, to hear the stunning news. 

Charles Xavier had disclosed to the world that he was a mutant. Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning was revealed to actually be a school for mutants. There were video clips splashed worldwide of the familiar barred gates with groups of protestors camped outside – from both pro and anti mutant groups. Hateful graffiti splashed all over the once stately walls around the grounds. Apparently he'd stopped short of exposing the X-Men themselves, but it was only a matter of time before connections were made. 

Scott must be livid, Alex thought. 

Some of the news reports puzzled him, however. Reporters had determined that only five other people – reputed mutants all – lived in the mansion. There should be far more X-Men than that, as he remembered. Unless most of them had decided they didn't want to be 'outed', and had left. He'd caught sight of someone who could only be Wolverine dressed all in black leather once in a blurred distance shot of the grounds. The rest of the news was filled with tidbits on the much respected geneticist and physicist Dr. Henry McCoy, the Beast, an admitted mutant and ex-Avenger who was rumored to live in the mansion as well. There were plenty of stock shots of Hank's grinning blue-furred mug on the screen, but no live pictures. That worried Alex a bit. Hank wasn't normally shy. 

Reports then went on about the impact of Xavier's revelation on the new high-profile mutant mercenary team, X-Force. There were sound-bites of that bizarrely commercial team's young leader, The Orphan, waving off questions about Xavier. Apparently Xavier had figured prominently in The Orphan's past, giving him the means and the training to survive with his mutation. Other team members contributed less flattering commentary on Xavier, particularly The Anarchist, who seemed to despise him. Stock footage of a brawl between most of the X-Force that Alex remembered and this new group filled the screen, along with speculation on Xavier's involvement with the demonstrably hostile young mutants who had voiced prior claim to the X-Force name. 

Alex watched it all in grim silence. 

"So, what does this mean?" Nate asked, somber. They were in a bar that catered to a mostly English-speaking clientele near the main airport, grabbing dinner and waiting while their plane was fueled again and checked over. He'd just finished filing his flight plan to the Maldives, the closest he could come to Genosha without military clearance. Once there, they'd have to figure out an alternate way to get to the island. 

Both of them had dressed in ordinary clothing rather than costumes in order to avoid drawing official attention. Nate, apparently, had discovered an all-encompassing love for the color black. He wore black slacks, a black tee shirt that hugged his slender chest, knee-skimming black leather jacket and black boots. He looked young and dangerous and sexy with his shock of newly unruly brown hair stained with white. Women everywhere followed him with their eyes – and a few men too. He looked like a slumming rock star, especially when he slipped on Ray-Bans to hide his flaring left eye. 

Black frames, of course. 

Alex rolled his eyes. He'd had enough of that color in his containment suit to last him a lifetime. So he'd chosen to wear blue jeans, loafers and a lightweight jacket over a green polo shirt. Bland, boring. Discreet. Exactly what he'd wanted. There weren't any women casting _him_ second looks, at least none that he saw. Nate, however, had a few things to learn about discreet. But somehow the boy seemed oblivious to the adoring, lusting looks cast his way, despite the fact that he was a telepath. 

"I don't know," Alex said, uneasy, pushing around the last of his pasta on his place. There was no mention of X-Factor. And a US government sponsored mutant team would be prominently profiled at a time like this. He didn't have the time to hang around and see if CNN would bring it up later. He wanted to get moving. Needed to get moving again. 

He gathered up Nate – disappointing nearly a dozen women in the bar – paid their tab and left. 

In the air, the shades of the dead hadn't bothered him as much. It might just have been the level of concentration necessary when flying, but he had been grateful for the respite. On the ground, however, particularly in a city as large as Singapore, they were plentiful and persistent. And the closer they came to Genosha, the more of them appeared. Manifestation was apparently a favorite habit of the recently deceased. He was reluctant to disperse them, simply because of the exhausting effect the Nexus had on him. He would have to endure. 

He sighed in exasperation when he saw another fully-manifested shade waiting for him in the service hanger by the rental plane. 

"Havok," the slender, chalk-pale young man called to him. 

Alex came to a halt, his focus alerting Nate that he was seeing things again. Nate scanned around warily, but seemed unable to locate the shade. Which made Alex feel marginally better. Nate could generally sense the ones that were physically dangerous. So this was a more normal shade. The trauma would be all in his own mind. Wonderful. 

"Do I know you?" he asked cautiously. The shade grinned wide, shaking his head slowly. 

"Not lookin' like this ya don't," the shade said. Then with startling speed he morphed into a hulking, muscular gray-white form, bio-generated weapons bristling from his arms. 

"Random," Alex said, feeling a strange mixture of regret and annoyance as he recognized the former mutant mercenary. "You were on the island." The big shoulders shrugged. 

"Magneto paid top dollar," Random said, with a self-deprecating smile. The smile vanished. "Why'd ya come back, Alex?" 

Alex stared at his former teammate, his former rival for Lorna's affections. Now dead. Like so many others. Facing one who'd died there, he wasn't certain exactly why he was so drawn to Genosha, Joseph's warning fading. Leaving him with only the overwhelming need to see it for himself, to feel it, to realize that the people, the places he'd known and worked for so hard were all gone. 

He hadn't liked or trusted Random in life, but in death he felt the strange need to be honest with him, "I have to make sure. . ." 

"No," Random cut him off, glaring at him and folding those dangerous arms across that impossible chest. "Why'd ya come back at all?" 

"What?" Alex asked, confused. Nate jerked to attention beside him, left eye spitting golden fire as his head swiveled around toward the hanger door. 

"Alex! Somebody's coming." The boy began to levitate off the floor, preparing for battle. 

Their defensive position was bad - inside an essentially open hanger. Alex looked hastily around. Grabbing Nate's jacket, he hauled him away from the plane, towing the boy through the air. He dared not use plasma bursts here. Too much fuel around. Nate's TK would have to suffice. 

"Who are they?" he ground out as he raced toward the side door of the hanger. Maybe they wouldn't have covered it yet. 

"Don't know. They're psi-shielded." 

That was not good. That implied someone knew what they were facing. He skidded to a stop as the door he was making for burst open. A man in power armor stood there, bulbous arms leveled at the two of them. 

"Freeze!" 

A weapon muzzle flashed menacingly at him. Energy or projectile? He couldn't tell and didn't care to find out. He shot Nate a warning glance, then put his hands up. 

"Okay! Take it easy!" Nate hovered beside him, simmering with annoyance. 

//Alex, we can take these guys. . . // 

//No, just shield if necessary. They were prepared for a psi. I want more information.// 

Five more armored suits boiled through the door, surrounding them, weapons pointed and ready, mostly at Nate where he still hovered in the air a few feet behind Alex. He had confidence in the strength of Nate's telekinetic shield. Then he heard the distinctive clack of high heels on concrete. He looked over and lowered his arms, crossing them over his chest as a tall blonde woman in a sleek navy blue suit pushed between the armored suits. 

"Well, well, well," a cold voice said. "Look who isn't so dead after all." 

"Val, you're slipping," he said, shaking his head slowly. "I hit that account three days ago. I expected you to catch up to us in Osaka." 

"Well, the Japanese are funny about letting us operate on their turf, you know," she said, glaring at him. "It's good to see you again, Alex. Where the hell do you think you're going?" 

"Genosha, Val," he said, meeting her piercing gaze steadily. "But I'm sure you figured that out for yourself." 

Valerie Cooper, official US Government metahuman liaison, just stared at him. Then, her face pinched with a curiously blank horror, she gestured to the armored suits to stand down. They did so, slowly. Nate glared at the blank face-plates surrounding them, fire glowing in his left eye. Alex put a warning hand on his arm. Power suits appeared to annoy Nate Grey. 

"Everyone's dead, Alex," she with a harsh tone in her voice. "It won't do you any good to go there. SHIELD and Xavier's people found two hundred and twenty-seven survivors. Most of whom are either still critical or gibbering wrecks from being buried under rubble for hours." 

He met her hollow gaze with his own, echoes of horror seen and endured in both their eyes. Two hundred and twenty-seven. Out of a population of over 16 million. 

"Any radiation?" he asked quietly. She shook her head and shifted uneasily on her feet, folding her arms over her chest. 

"Minimal," she said. "Focused energy beams, mostly." 

"Where was Magneto?" he asked quietly. Val loosed a deep sigh. 

"Well, rumor has it he was hooked up to life support, nearly comatose. Apparently, a week or so earlier, our pal Wolverine managed to get close enough to punch those claws of his through Magneto's chest while he was distracted with torturing Xavier." 

"Hmm," Alex said, raising a single eyebrow. "The old team's been busy while I've been away." 

"Speaking of," she said, glancing cautiously at Nate then back to him, "where the heck have you been, Alex?" 

"Dead," he said. Nate laughed, the sound bitter and sharp. Val glared at him, obviously not taking him seriously. 

"I don't appreciate stunts like that, Havok. The rather fiery and public 'demise' of the team leader and a junior member convinced the Senate to cut back our funding. X-Factor was mothballed. The team dispersed. . ." she trailed off, her face paling. She narrowed her gaze at him, suddenly reticent. 

"I know about Lorna," he said calmly. She shifted uneasily, uncomfortable with his composure. Admittedly, it wasn't much like the Havok she'd once known. After Genosha, there wasn't all that much left of the Havok she'd once known, he thought wearily, or of his life here. He continued before she could speak again. "Why do you have psi dampers, Val?" 

She jerked her thumb at Nate. "For Grey, of course. I recognized him from surveillance photos." 

Alex glanced at Nate. Nate shrugged sheepishly. "From the Richards, maybe. Or the Avengers." 

"Try Onslaught, kid," Val said dryly. "Not to mention Central friggin' Park." 

Alex sighed deeply. "Are you going to make this a fight, Val?" 

"_Why_ do you need to go there, Alex?" she asked after a moment spent searching his eyes. 

"They were my people, Val," he said, face still and controlled. "I spent a lot of time there, tried to do some good for the mutates. It wasn't enough. Then the UN gave it to Magneto. And I guess he went a little wacko there at the end. . . but the rest of them didn't deserve to die." 

There was a long silence before she shook her head at him again. 

"You don't need to do this to yourself," she said, concerned. And he knew just how bad it must be on the island if Valerie Cooper was showing concern. How could he explain to her that he'd already endured far worse; the dead themselves? 

"Yes, Val, I do," he said, gaze hardening. Nate shifted beside him, sensing his determination. "Now are you going to help me, or not?" 

* * * * *

They traveled the last few miles by jet helicopter. There was something to be said for getting the military to help you. Val had pulled strings, got fast transport for Nate and him to a U.S. aircraft carrier stationed just off Genosha's coast. Then came the helicopter ride. 

Despite what he knew, despite the passage of the dead, he wasn't really prepared for his first sight of Hammer Bay. 

It was gone. 

A once thriving, modern city. Skyscrapers, shopping malls, homes, industry. All gone. Leveled. Destroyed. There was nothing but blasted, broken rubble left; concrete and steel, glass and ashes. Complete and utter devastation. Smoke still rose from dozens of locations around the former capital city of Genosha, as well as from locations further inland, beyond the sloping valley that had cradled the city. Other towns. Power plants. Factories. Water systems. Farms. All gone. 

Wiped clean. 

Such hatred. 

He leaned his forehead against the window of the helicopter, pale and shaking. Nate's hand on his shoulder, the boy's mind brushing reassuringly against his. Nate had seen similar scenes in his own world; they brought back unpleasant memories for him, but still he reached out and offered comfort. Alex felt a surge of pride in the boy, a brief high spot in the otherwise overwhelming grief and dismay. But there was worse to come. 

The shades of the dead waited for him on the shore below. 

The pilot circled around the columns of smoke, coming in to a part of the city that Alex vaguely recognized as being near the base of the Citadel, Magneto's former palace. An extensive search and rescue station had been set up there, with military and civilian workers of all nations swarming through the rubble. Searching tirelessly for signs of life. It lightened his heart just a little to see these humans striving so hard on behalf of mutants. To see that when disaster of this magnitude struck, that underneath they were all human, all connected. 

They landed in a swirl of dust and ash, obscuring the view, sending observers, workers scrambling for cover. Then the dust suddenly settled to the ground, clearing the air. Alex shot Nate a startled glance. The boy's eye flared brightly as he telekinetically suppressed the dust. Approaching ground crew froze in surprised shock. Alex swiftly unbuckled himself, pulled off his sound-dampening headphones and climbed out of the helicopter, Nate close on his heels, before anyone changed their mind about allowing two metahumans back on the island. 

An older black man with stark white hair and a SHIELD uniform on pushed through the gaping ground crew, a glare on his face. He yelled at them over the whine of the rotors. 

"Cute display. Commander G.W. Bridge, SHIELD SitCom. Follow me." Alex complied, Nate close behind. He vaguely recognized Bridge, certain that he'd met him before, but a while ago. He knew at least that he was a high-ranked SHIELD operative. Around the ruins, he could feel the pressure of the unsettled dead. They hadn't approached him, which concerned him. There was direction, of a sort, implied in that. As if something was keeping them away from him, from the Nexus, for now. 

They walked through the rubble away from the landing zone to a busy command station set up near the rubble of the Citadel. Bridge led them into a tent, away from the curious stares of the workers. He ordered the SHIELD agents in the tent out. They went warily, with much glancing at Alex and Nate. 

"Cooper filled me in on you, Havok. And this one," Bridge said without preamble, giving Nate a hard stare, then blinking and looking closer, shaking his head as if he'd thought he recognized him, but dared not admit it. The boy just crossed his arms nonchalantly over his chest, looking vaguely dangerous and sullen in his all-black attire – and very young. The SHIELD agent sneered at him then, dismissing him. Bridge had no idea, Alex thought grimly. "I don't like it, but I'll guide you around on your little tour of the devastation." 

"I don't need a tour, Commander Bridge," Alex said bleakly. "I just need space and privacy." Bridge shot him a suspicious look. 

"Why?" 

"It's a mutant thing, Commander," he replied with grim resolution, then relented slightly. "I need to settle things here." Bridge rolled his eyes as if he'd heard similar sentiments before. And working for SHIELD he just might have. 

"And how are you going to do that? You're an energy converter, Havok. Last thing we need is more plasma spewing around here. The snotty little telepath here might be useful, but we've already had our telepaths comb the ruins and there just isn't anyone left to find," Bridge said, face equally grim. The toll of the last few days was engraved on his weary face. Grieving in his own way, as a human for fellow humans. There were just too many dead. Too little hope. And also concerned as a solider because there was still the danger of another attack, somewhere else in the world unless they could find the responsible party and stop them. Alex, however, had more immediate concerns. He could feel the pressure of the dead rising. 

"Oh, they're here all right," Alex said. "Waiting for me." Nate shifted uneasily beside him, then lifted his head and turned, as if listening to something. The Nexus surged. 

"Alex," he said, eyes wide. "I've got something. . . uh!" He grunted in pain. Shook his head, eyes glazing, distracted. Alex put a hand on his shoulder. Squeezed hard. 

"Block him, Nate," he said urgently. Afraid that he'd miscalculated badly, exposing the boy to something he couldn't handle. Afraid that he, himself, wouldn't be strong enough for what he had to do now. Nate turned mismatched eyes on him, wide with uncertainty. Bridge was glancing back and forth between the two of them, confused and alarmed. 

"How can he. . .he's not even _alive_. . ." Nate groaned, staggered, horrified. Alex caught his shoulders, propping him up, staring into his eyes, trying to lend the boy his strength. 

"Find a way! This was why I had to come here," Alex said tightly, face grim. "He's too strong. He won't go quietly." 

"What do you mean? Who?" Bridge demanded, interrupting anxiously. Then the tent blew away, ripped from the ground and into pieces with a terrible, endless rending sound. The pieces flew up like chaff. Around them, men and women ran in confusion, equipment flying, rock and metal and ash stirring. Bridge turned to call to his people, to try to restore order but staggered back instead, falling against Alex with a cry of fear. Alex looked over his shoulder. 

It was a shade. But a shade like none he'd yet seen. A glowing maelstrom of dark bio-magnetic energy bound in a vaguely human shape by will alone, but with eyes like windows onto the pit of hell. 

Magneto. 

"Havok, bring me back," the shade demanded. Voice hollow, ringing. Equipment, people, rubble were forced away from the center, away from Alex, by a blast of energy. Metal shards came screeching from the ruins to rise, whirling, into a deadly wall of debris, isolating them. Still the master of magnetism, even in death. His will formidable, indomitable. Bridge, apparently quite able to see this manifestation, crouched beside Alex, staring in horror. Nate on his other side. Alex could feel tremors race through the boy and shot him a concerned look. 

"He's not all there. . ." Nate gasped, sweating, eyes wild. "And he's drawing on me . . . somehow. . . ah! Make it stop!" Nate clutched at his head, face screwed up in agony, as he sank to his knees. Alex lifted a narrowed, angry stare to the shade of one of the most powerful mutants to ever walk the earth. 

"Leave him alone!" he yelled. The Nexus surged again. He touched it, trying to sense it's response. His power snapped to it, but he wrenched it stubbornly back. It wouldn't get away from him again. He was ready this time. The shade fluttered, seemed to grow more solid, more human looking as it approached, but still tendrils of dark-bright bio-magnetic energy splattered and fell from it. The eyes glowing like fire. Energy waves scorching and searing the blasted ground around it. More destruction. Nate screamed. Alex didn't dare turn away to check on him. 

"I must avenge what has been done to us, to our people, Havok! Bring me back!" 

"No! You're dead, Magnus! You must pass on or you will destroy the world!" 

The shade laughed, a terrible sound. "What care I for a world that kills an entire nation, an entire people out of fear? Let them all die! Bring me back now or I will destroy you!" 

Shadows of arms lifted, energy spat from the shade, fountaining up, spilling out in a glittering wave. Searing, punishing. Nate screamed again, falling to the ground, writhing behind him. Bridge shouted in pain. Alex felt the wave touch him, felt the Nexus absorb it, then reflect it back, feeding the shade's anger, it's will. Spreading the destruction. 

"No!" Alex yelled, reaching frantically for the Nexus, feeling control slip from his grasp. The shade roared with satisfaction. Lines of darkness, like tears in reality, arced between them. Alex staggered, fell. The Nexus somehow connecting to Magneto's power; fueled by his rage, his insanity, his grief. Energy flared higher. The earth groaned beneath them. Alex shouted in frustrated anger, unable to stop the flow of a power that wasn't his own. They were doomed. 

Then, beyond the terrible shade, he saw someone dive swiftly and without harm through the deadly wall of debris, parting it easily. Long white hair blowing with the flow of energy, gray eyes blazing. All serenity and detachment gone. Joseph. 

"Magnus," Joseph called, eyes flashing. 

The shade turned. Snarled in fury. "Filthy _copy_! Abomination!" 

Energy leaped from one to the other, split and flowed. Joseph shielded himself, hands rising, pressing against the force of the shade's attack. Falling back, faltering under the onslaught, but still deflecting it. For now. The shade new no limits. The ground began to shudder and tremble. But Joseph had distracted it. 

Alex saw his chance, struggled to his feet, grabbing the Nexus tightly. Feeling it inside him, wrenching it desperately away from the shade's grasp. Hearing the wail of dismay as the link was broken. Then feeding it his own power instead, filling that hungry gap. Lines of nothingness arced up from him – glowing splits in reality that sucked in part of the whirling wall of debris, dissolving it, shredding it with an unearthly howl. He fought the lines back, drawing them in, banishing them. Forcing the Nexus to obey him. Gasping hard, he looked up again. 

The shade grappled with Joseph. Energy twining around them both. Screams of pain and outrage coming from the battle. The younger man was slowly being beaten back, overwhelmed by the sheer driving hatred, the utter despair, the manic need of the shade as it locked hands around his throat. Bending him over, forcing him to the ground. Choking him. Joseph clawed desperately at the dark-energy hands around his throat, eyes rolling. 

Alex reached out with the Nexus. Touched the shade. The dark head lifted, turned. The glowing eyes locked on him, wide with disbelief. 

"No! You cannot!" 

Joseph took the opportunity to drive his clenched fists up into the shade, calling out in shock as his hands slid into the dissipating form. The shade screamed in outraged pain. Alex cried out as well, struggling to keep them separate, the Nexus flaring. Feeding strength to one, yet driving the other away. 

Then, with a sharp wrench and a final howl, the shade of Magneto was gone. 

Bio-magnetic energy snapped free, shaking the ground like an earthquake with the force of its return. The whirling debris exploded away, out of control. Alex fell forward to his knees, reaching desperately, but unable to make the Nexus respond in time. The workers, the soldiers around them! Nate cried out behind him and abruptly the deadly metal cloud froze, then rained down on the ground harmlessly. Stopped by Nate's TK. 

Alex staggered over to Joseph, crouched beside him. Reached out and touched him. Hissing with surprise when he found pulse and breath. 

"Shit, you're alive!" 

"So it seems," Joseph said, voice hoarse, the skin of his throat red and raw where the shade had grabbed him. He propped himself slowly on his elbows, gray eyes shadowed with pain, haunted with dread. Alex felt Nate drop to the ground beside him and glanced over. A line of blood ran down from the boy's nose, his eyes blurred and confused. Bridge stood unsteadily behind him, covered with dirt, bleeding as well but only from little cuts left by flying debris. 

"You guys okay?" Alex asked both of them, glancing from Nate to Bridge. Nate seemed dazed, distracted, while Bridge nodded, eyes wild. 

"Yeah, guess so. What the hell happened, Havok? And who's _this_?" 

"Joseph. Magneto's clone. He saved us." 

"Christ on a crutch," Bridge said heavily. "I thought he was _dead_. I thought _both_ of them were dead." 

"Well, not exactly," Alex said, trading weary looks with Joseph before meeting Bridge's troubled look. "But Magneto is, now. We sent him on." Bridge eyed him with sharp calculation, trying to figure out how much he could believe and then, more importantly, what he could say in his report to be believed. But Alex didn't care about explanations. The exhaustion was eating at him, threatening to suck him under. He had to keep going a little while longer. Alex looked over at Nate, concerned when he hadn't answered. The blood was worrisome. 

"Nate, you okay?" 

Nate just nodded loosely, sitting slumped, his head lolling. Alex cupped the boy's chin in a hand, looking intently into the half-lidded blue eyes. Seeing that the gold had drained away from the left one. One pupil larger than the other, as well – some kind of concussion, maybe. Or shock. 

"I think he needs medical attention," Alex said shortly, glancing urgently at Commander Bridge. Then he lifted his head, as if listening. "But I'm not done just yet." Bridge rolled his eyes and shook his head, but didn't argue. 

SHIELD troops began to approach them, warily, eyes on the white-haired mutant who looked so much like Magneto, their known enemy. Commander Bridge staggered over to them, waving them away, asking for injury reports, damages, starting his people on their work again. Distracting them from the three mutants. 

Alex rose slowly to his feet, looking around with grim purpose. Now that Magneto was gone, the rest of the shades that had lingered on Genosha pushed forward. He watched silently as they passed through the human workers and the SHIELD troops without detection, save by a rare sensitive few who shuddered and looked around with nebulous disquiet. 

He shook his head as the dead approached, only vaguely aware of Joseph and Nate crumpled at his feet, the startled human bystanders beyond. 

"You felt Magneto pass," he called to them. They stopped, close, but not clawing at him as they had done in Alaska, during their destruction. Resigned. "I can help you pass too, but that is all." 

The shade of a young woman with a mournful face and dressed in tattered black rags nodded to him solemnly. 

"We will pass," she said, as others beyond nodded agreement. "Magneto held us here. We wish peace." 

He smiled gently at her. She did not respond, her large eyes wide. 

"Tell Miz Frost that I miss her and that I saw what she tried to do for me," the girl said, meeting his gaze in a flicking, sidelong way. Shy, even in death. "Tell her it wasn't her fault I died." Alex nodded gravely in reply, promising. The girl lifted her lips in a brief, forced smile, then bowed her head, ready. Alex scanned them quickly, seeing the ranks of the dead spread out through the rubble; mutants he'd never met, some he had, briefly, faces vaguely familiar, faces strange. All dead. All waiting to pass on into the unknown. Waiting for the Nexus to free them. 

Through the shades he could see the SHIELD people, the human volunteers staring toward him, confused, alarmed as he raised his hands into the air, plasma glowing around them. Then he reached for the Nexus, feeding it his power. 

In a rippling, spreading wave that only he could see, taking seconds, frozen moments of time, the endless ranks of the shades of the dead winked out. He held the Nexus, stretching his control, his power, reaching through the island itself, finding the trapped pockets of the dead, releasing them. All across the island, even to the far side. After several long, painful moments, but only when he was certain all had been set free of Magneto's bindings, he clenched his hands shut, closing off the Nexus at the same time. 

Then he was falling forward, falling into darkness and exhaustion, hearing someone call his name anxiously as he fell and knew no more. 

- - to be continued - - 


	4. Part 4

Not All Who Wander Are Lost - Part 4 by paxnirvana Format for use with submitting fanfic. Not All Who Wander Are Lost – Part 4 by paxnirvana 
    
    Rating: R [mature themes]
    Characters: Alex Summers, Nate Grey, Joseph, others
    Archive: If you like it, just ask me.

Author's Notes: Pre New X-Men # 117 [i.e.: before the Shi'ar show up] - More troublesome topics and some bad language. 10/20/01 

Oh, a bit late, but text in //slashes// is telepathic conversation. But you probably figured that out already. . . *shrugs* 

Disclaimer: Marvel owns it all. I'm just pretending. They make the money and I certainly don't even pretend to do that.

* * * * *

Alex Summers woke to shifting darkness and the sounds of muted activity outside the good-sized tent he was billeted in. The cot was hard, the blanket scratchy military issue. He lay there gathering impressions as he worked his way back to full awareness; organized, purposeful motion outside, the quiet in the tent that led him to believe he was alone, the idle wondering if the Nexus would ever get any easier to bear. 

He sat up slowly, looking around the dim tent. Boxes, bags and crates of supplies were shoved in among a few other cots. It had the air of hastily re-organized space. A water cooler stood near the closed tent flaps. He climbed to his feet, made his way eagerly to the cooler, and drew himself a cup of water, draining it thirstily. He looked around the tent again, frowning as he spotted someone else stretched out on a cot in the opposite corner of the tent. 

Nate Grey. 

He moved over to the boy, seating himself beside him in concern. Remembering blood and dazed reactions. His face was clean, if pale and he appeared to be sleeping peacefully, if rather heavily. 

"Nate?" he called softly, laying a hand on the boy's shoulder. The young telepath shifted slightly, but didn't awaken even when he shook him gently. And brief outrage shot through Alex. Drugged, probably. But for his own health or for someone else's purposes? And where, he thought suddenly, lifting his head to look hastily around the otherwise empty tent again just in case, was Joseph? 

He surged to his feet, irritation and concern running through him, and made for the tent flap, pushing through it and coming to an abrupt halt when he saw Cyclops standing a few feet away speaking with a SHIELD agent. Dressed in heavy black and yellow leather, a new thinner style visor, his hair cut ruthlessly short. There were lines in his face that hadn't been there before. Or that he hadn't noticed before, Alex admitted to himself, just like the ones he saw in his own mirror. Old men already in their mid-twenties. His brother dismissed the man, folded his arms over his chest and looked him over stonily in return. 

"They told me you were finally awake," Scott said quietly. Alex ran his hand through his own hair and gave a short, humorless laugh. 

"Good to see you too, brother," he said sharply, mockingly. "Glad you're not dead after all." Scott didn't change expression, face still and unreadable under his visor. The silence stretched uncomfortably long. 

"I've had a few hours to get used to the idea, Alex," Scott finally said into the tense silence. "Besides, I understand you've been back almost a week now and couldn't be bothered to contact the mansion." 

"Yeah, well, I've spent most of that sleeping," Alex replied defensively, annoyed and knowing he didn't have all that much room to be annoyed. But if Scott wanted to play it hard, he could do that too. "Where's Joseph?" 

Scott raised a brow at him, lips narrowing slightly. 

"He's supposed to be dead, you know," Scott said. He looked thinner, and pale. As if he hadn't been well. But the iron will, the solid drive remained. It was almost as if he'd been boiled down to his essence by En Sabah Nur. 

"Well, looks like us Summers don't have the lock on that franchise after all," Alex said, peering around the camp. Starting to be concerned when all he could see were SHIELD uniforms and more tents scattered amid the rubble. Automatic weapons and power armor. Crates and jeeps. It looked like SHIELD was settling in. 

"We were told Nate Grey was dead too," Scott said, a strange tightness to his voice. Alex glanced at him sharply. The boy was his brother's son, in a way, deleted-reality origin or not. He hadn't really considered how it would effect Scott to bring Nate back, not that he'd had a great deal of choice at the time. He sighed deeply. 

"Effectively, he was," Alex said quietly. "I drew him back." 

"You did?" Scott said, brow raised dubiously. 

"Well, the Nexus," Alex said with a tight shrug. "It was a side-effect of the destruction of Genosha. The only way I could focus enough to keep reality together." 

Scott went silent again and looked away, his expression remote and chill. Doubting, perhaps. Or lost in memories of his own. Painful ones. But he hadn't been the only one to suffer recently, to lose. Why did Scott seem so extremely fragile, so painfully distant? Just how much of Scott was left after En Sabah Nur's possession? Alex's concern took on a sharper edge. 

"It was you who took out the Sentinel controls in the Amazon, wasn't it?" Alex's voice was cool too. 

"Yes. The Master Mold," Scott said. "But I was too late. Too late for a lot of things." 

Alex stared into his brother's visor. Remembering another Scott. A happy, relaxed, joyful Scott who cheerfully raided Shi'ar shipping as a Starjammer. One he'd barely come to know and accept before losing him to the Nexus. Now he was back with his real brother, the one he'd known most of his life, only to find him even more of a stranger. More rigid, more controlled, more distant than ever. It saddened him. But there was only so much he could do right now, and there were others who needed him more. 

"Scott, where's Joseph? And why is Nate drugged?" 

Scott looked at him, face set. "Nate is drugged for his own safety. Whatever that energy thing was. . ." 

"Magneto's ghost," Alex interjected. 

"_Magneto's ghost_," Scott repeated after a moment of level silence, brow raised. "Well, whatever it was, it did a number on his mind, according to Jean. Effectively, his telepathy was burned. Sleep is the best thing for him, she said, until he can heal a little more on the psychic plane." 

"How long?" 

"A day or so. He's strong." 

"Okay, I can understand that," Alex said. Pondering whether it was worth the exhaustion to attempt to use the Nexus to help Nate. Or if it was best to let nature take its course. He sighed again. "I'll let him be for now, I guess. What about Joseph?" 

"SHIELD is less than pleased to have Magneto back," Scott said dryly. Alex shook his head. 

"No, Bridge knows better – he's not Magnus," Alex said impatiently. "He actually _is_ Joseph, back from the magnetosphere." 

"Regardless, his return does present . . . difficulties. . . regarding the legal status of Genosha," Scott said, nodding briefly to concede the point. 

"Oh?" Alex said, crossing his own arms over his chest, unconsciously mimicking his brother's pose. 

"Clones still aren't widely accepted," Scott said, expression grim. Alex flashed to Maddie, his own expression freezing. "Since genetically he is identical to Magnus, legally he can be considered to _be_ Magnus, under the normal rules of evidence." 

"Well, at least he won't be poor," Alex said with a tight smile. Magnus' resources were legendary. Scott didn't return the smile. 

"SHIELD is contacting the Avengers," Scott said. Alex raised a brow. "The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, specifically." 

"Oh shit, Wanda and Pietro," Alex said, glancing off into the night sky, trying to ignore the columns of smoke that still rose in the distance. He'd been too busy, before, to really think about where he was. The destruction. "I'd almost forgotten them." 

"First you bring Nate back; then Joseph – raising the dead isn't your usual thing, Alex," Scott said without inflection. Standing stiff and somehow uncomfortable in his new leathers. What was wrong with the old unstable molecule costumes? Not trendy enough? And why did it bother him so? He'd always hated his own costume, or rather, the necessity for it. Maybe it was that by giving up the trappings of a hero, Scott had somehow compromised himself. Become something he'd always sworn he wouldn't. Alex frowned. 

"No, it's not," Alex said, facing his brother. "But it's why I'm still alive. There's this force called the Nexus of Realities - a kind of focus point where everything and anything is real. And for some reason, it became linked to me when Greystone's temporal bomb exploded. Part of the Summers luck, I suppose, since it kept me alive and dropped me into another world." 

"One we've encountered before?" 

Alex shook his head, "Oh no, this one's way down the line from here. Quite a bit different." 

"Okay," Scott said. No interest, no further reaction. Before he would have gotten a grilling, an angry denunciation, then a lecture on his failings. But this was simple acceptance of the colossal strangeness that was his life. Perhaps anything more was beyond his brother now. Alex just stared at him; dismayed, aching, afraid. Mostly afraid. 

"Apocalypse did a real job on you, didn't he, Scott?" 

Silence again that he didn't think Scott would ever break, his posture stiff, his face frozen. He could tell, from long experience, that Scott's eyes were closed behind his visor. Then they opened again and his brother looked away, trembling slightly. 

"More than you'll ever know." Voice thin, ragged. Not Scott-like at all. His face haggard. 

"How's Jean taking it?" 

"Not well." 

There was movement beyond, and Alex cursed inwardly at the timing. Scott heard, or sensed the motion, of course and turned, his face once more impassive as an anxious-looking young SHIELD trooper trotted up to them. 

"Cyclops, sir? Commander Bridge wanted me to inform you that the Avengers Quinjet is on final approach. ETA fifteen minutes." 

"Thank you, soldier," Scott said, dismissing the man. Who shot wary looks between the two of them before turning and leaving. Alex sighed deeply and bowed his head, shoving his fists in his pockets in frustration. Then lifting his head as something brushed the Nexus. A shade? But no, it didn't feel the same. It was more of a recognition rather than a draw. A connection. Something else left over? Maybe Magnus wasn't as gone as he'd hoped. 

"I need to see Joseph," Alex fixed his brother with a sharp look. Scott nodded and turned away without further argument. Relieved, probably, to let the personal subject drop. Alex followed him, noticing the stiffness of his own body. It came from too much sleep, too much trauma, too little chance to just move and work his muscles. The walk through the SHIELD base camp, set in the flatter rubble-filled areas and wrapping around the worst piles of debris, loosened him up a little. He'd need to get some serious exercise in soon. 

They eventually came to an isolated tent surrounded by nearly a dozen power suits, all with energy weapons charged. Latest version of Mandroid armor, Alex guessed. It looked slick and tough. He figured he and Scott could reduce them all to scrap in under two minutes, if pushed. He didn't bother to tap his cosmic charge, he could feel it practically bubbling from his pores. He'd have to drain it later, but it remained firmly under his control despite the pressure. One blessing of the Nexus. 

Scott paused, glanced over his shoulder at his brother thoughtfully, then faced the armored agents. 

"Get Commander Bridge," he said shortly, expecting to be obeyed. The agents snapped to attention, responding instantly to his tone. "Havok's awake." 

"Yes, sir!" One of the suited agents replied, then lumbered obediently off toward the rest of the camp. Scott simply stood there, hands in his coat pockets, staring at one of the larger piles of rubble beyond the tent. The echo on the Nexus grew stronger, more insistent. Alex began to look around warily, drawing Scott's attention, finally. 

"What?" 

"Not sure," Alex said looking off into the darkness, toward the east and the bay. Shaking his head uneasily. "The Nexus is reacting to something, but not like it usually does." 

As Scott was frowning, preparing to speak, Commander Bridge approached at a fast walk, a shame-faced armored agent trailing behind him, suit helmet popped open. Chewed out for obeying a civilian? Alex felt no pity. Better men had tried to stand up to Scott's leader-voice and failed. 

"Cyclops," Bridge said curtly, nodding at them both. "Havok. What do you need?" 

"I need to see Joseph," Alex said, shifting. 

"Well, actually, I'm not sure that's a good thing, Havok," Bridge said, clearly uncomfortable. "While you were passed out, I received orders regarding him; detain and analyze." 

"That's bullshit, Bridge, he helped save us back there and you know it," Alex said, focusing completely on the embarrassed SHIELD commander. 

"Yeah, but orders are orders," Bridge said with barely concealed disgust. "Until I can get to Fury personally, he stays in custody. And Fury's busy right now." 

Alex glared, Scott stepping to his side, unaware in that instant that he and his brother resembled each other so strongly that the humans were taken aback. Two mutants, unified; dangerous, powerful, confident – and annoyed. 

"Any specific orders about visitors?" Alex snapped. Bridge shook his head with a deep sigh and gave a hand-sign to the power-armored agents. They parted reluctantly. 

"No. Go on and see him," Bridge said. "Cyclops, I need a word with you." 

Alex shot Scott a disgusted look then pushed past the suits to the tent. He slipped inside. 

It was lit by a single electric lantern. Joseph sat on the edge of an uncomfortable looking cot just like the one he'd woken up on. He was dressed in a plain black bodysuit, the contrast with his long white hair stark. Around forearms and waist had been sealed specialized restraints of some kind, probably including a power damper, as the restraints were metal and Joseph's command of magnetism would otherwise allow him to shred them like tissue paper. Or he could be staying bound in order to prove himself to SHIELD. Alex met the angry gray gaze and knew it wasn't that. 

"At least you're awake now," Joseph said, voice tight with annoyance. "Maybe you can talk some sense into these paranoid military fools. Where is Nate?" 

"Easy there," Alex said, moving over to sit on the cot across from his. Recognizing a hint of Magnus' famous temper simmering in those icy gray eyes. "Nate's resting. The shade hurt him more than we thought." 

"Telepathic attack," Joseph said, expression fierce. "Magnus was a beta-level psion." 

"Aren't you?" 

"No signs of it yet – it might have been late-onset or activated by any number of traumatic events in his life," Joseph said calming slightly, his sense of irony rising to his rescue. "I may be his clone, and stuck with an incomplete memory transfer, but I haven't lived quite as dramatic a life. Yet." 

"No, but you're about to," Alex said dryly. "SHIELD called the Avengers." 

Joseph raised his head slightly, chin lifting. His long hair slid over his shoulder, falling across the side of his face. With his hands bound he couldn't push it back himself. He flipped his head impatiently to send it back, shooting Alex an annoyed glance when it didn't go. 

"So, his children are coming," Joseph said softly. Alex nodded, watching him closely. The other man looked into the distance, his expression pensive, concerned. There clearly were emotions, memories for him to sort through; relationships to build on or tear down, hinging completely on Wanda and Pietro's reaction to him. Joseph had encountered Pietro before. The meeting, reportedly, had not gone well. 

"Any side-effects from the fight?" Alex asked, feeling that strange echo on the Nexus growing stronger. Something was coming. Something he wasn't certain of, and that didn't feel hostile, just momentous. 

Joseph shook his head, drawn from his thoughts. 

"I'm breathing again," he said with a half smile. 

Alex laughed. "Okay, other than that." 

The piercing gray gaze met his, sharp intelligence clear in them. As well as uncanny understanding. He knew what Alex was afraid of, understood the necessity of the fear, accepted it without anger. The woman who had dared to clone Magnus and copy his memories had taken a considerable risk. There was a powerful personality in this man; tied to a brilliant mind and a staggering mutant power. Yet Joseph seemed consumed with a need to separate himself from the one who had been his template. Compassion was more important to him, the need for revenge for past injustices a fading thing. Joseph strove hard to be his own man, to avoid being led or even pushed by a past that wasn't truly his own. 

"There was a slight merge, there at the end, but I believe I mostly managed to block him out. Some memories are stronger now is all," Joseph said, brows furrowed thoughtfully. "He was more determined to take me with him than to take me over – he always viewed me as an insult." 

"I worried about that, so I held on to _you_ pretty tightly," Alex said. Then he sighed deeply. "And I think that's why you're alive again. Just like Nate." 

Those snowy brows rose and amusement shone in the gray eyes below them. "Thank you," he said dryly. Then shook his bound hands slightly, exasperation rising again. "I think." 

"Legally," Alex said, disgusted with SHIELD's knee-jerk fear response too, "you can be considered to be Magnus himself, Scott thinks, since you are genetically identical. And Magnus was ruler of a sovereign nation. They won't be able to hold you long." 

"There is no nation left," Joseph said solemnly, jerking his head toward the wall of the tent, and by implication toward the ruin and rubble outside. 

"So? Rebuild it." 

"Dangerous words, Havok," a new voice interjected. Alex's head whipped around toward the now open tent flap, and he stared into the grim face of Pietro Maximoff as the white-haired mutant stepped inside. "I doubt the flatscans would tolerate that." 

"Quicksilver," he acknowledged calmly, hiding his dismay as he examined the newly arrived Avenger. Wearing icy blue and white and black. A new costume, but still a familiar one. No black leather, at least. But Pietro had eyes only for the man beyond him. 

"So, it is as SHIELD reported: you are alive and whole again, Father," Pietro said stiffly. 

Joseph awkwardly rose to his feet, hindered by the heavy power binders, his face still and impassive. Pietro frowned. Alex stood as well, feeling the Nexus hum with something eerily like anticipation. 

"Where's your sister, Pietro?" Alex asked, trying to delay any unpleasantness until the normally cooler-headed Wanda could arrive. The mutant speedster had obviously come on ahead of her with his usual impatience. 

Quicksilver didn't look away from Joseph's face, matching gray gazes locked together. 

"She is on her way," he confirmed tightly, taking a step further inside the tent, still glaring at Joseph. Alex could see the coiled tension in the lean body, and feel it as a kind of vibration, a wave almost, through the Nexus. Something about Pietro was making it react too, but he wasn't the source of the echo. That was rapidly approaching, however, and Alex had a sinking realization of what was causing it, just as the tent flap parted again and a tall, dark-haired woman stepped inside. 

He'd forgotten just how incredibly stunning Wanda Maximoff was, Alex thought for a bemused instant, simply staring at her as she caught her long red cloak in her hand and came to a halt beside her brother, dressed in her signature red costume. Not just beautiful in the conventional sense, but strong in presence and poise, a woman of great willpower and skill. 

Her dark gaze shot to him first, and the Nexus rang in recognition. 

"It's coming from _you_," the Scarlet Witch said softly, her eyes wide with puzzled curiosity. 

"And you," he replied, their gazes locked, the Nexus resonating, filling him with a strange sensation of completion, of rightness. Pietro, as always protective of his twin, glanced between them with annoyance, distracted from his focus on Joseph at last. 

"What is going on?" her brother demanded. Wanda stepped further inside, her gaze never leaving Alex. The tent flap opened again and more people entered but Alex paid them no heed. He couldn't look away from Wanda nor she from him. The Nexus sang inside him, calling her, lulling him. 

"I don't understand this," she was saying, moving closer. Then suddenly, Joseph was between them, pushing Alex back, raising his bound arms toward Wanda to stop her slow advance. 

"No! Alex, something is not right," Joseph said, looking anxiously over his shoulder at him. "I think it would be dangerous for you two to touch." 

"What?" Alex said, shaking his head, trying to fight off the dazed feeling that had overwhelmed him. The Nexus was not reaching, as it could do, just calling. Pulling toward itself something familiar, something connected, maybe even another aspect of itself. Wanda shook her own head hard, and she raised a hand to her forehead, frowning. 

"Yes, I can see now," she said, taking a staggering step back. Pietro caught her to him, his hands flexing protectively on her shoulders. She burrowed back against him, shivering, seeking familiarity and comfort. "It wants to _absorb_ me." 

Alex could feel the pull, the call reaching out to her, and knew she was right. The Nexus sought its like. He tried to suppress it, struggling with the strange force, succeeding partially. Wanda blinked as if coming out of a daze, glancing around the tent, her gaze skimming blankly over her brother, then Joseph before locking once again on Alex. 

"The Nexus of Realities is _inside_ you," she said softly, her expression vaguely worried. He nodded. She frowned and shivered again. Pietro pulled her closer. "And I am a nexus-focus, or so I have been told by a few dimensional travelers." 

"Which means?" Alex said. His knowledge of the force he was dealing with was practical rather than theoretical. Wanda appeared to have some understanding of the forces at work, or maybe just a recognition. He still didn't truly know what the Nexus was. Or all of what it could do. 

"Events pivot around me in many realities. . ." she said, glancing at Joseph where he stood stolidly between them, her gaze locking there as if she were noticing him for the first time. Her eyes widened and she sucked in a sharp breath, "Father." 

"No," Joseph replied, smiling at her a little sadly. "I am Joseph. His clone. Your father died with Genosha, Wanda. But I was drawn back when Alex released his spirit." 

"You sent him on?" Wanda said, looking back at Alex. Quicksilver shifted at her side, a dark frown on his face. He and Joseph locked gazes. Pietro haughty; Joseph stern. 

"You know how strong his will was," Alex said quietly, meeting her calm gaze. She nodded in understanding. "His spirit lingered here, where he died – feeding on despair and anger. Joseph was able to warn me that something was warping the magnetic field, gathering strength. I came here to release him, and all the rest of the shades trapped by his rage." Wanda swallowed hard, her face paling. Grief rising in her eyes. Despite all the trouble and pain he'd caused her and the world over the years, Magnus had still been her father. Even Pietro's eyes were suspiciously bright. Grief was to be expected now that the danger was past. 

"I imagine it was . . . difficult to persuade him to go," she said, eyes brimming. She glanced at Joseph, who bowed his head before her grief and Pietro's reluctant pain. Keeping a wary distance from her, Alex stepped to Joseph's side. He placed a hand on the other man's shoulder, felt a tremor run through that powerful body. 

"Yeah," Alex said, "and I couldn't have done it without Nate and Joseph." 

Wanda looked up at her brother and raised a brow, eyes bright. He looked down at her, solemn. It seemed as if some kind of communication passed between them. Acceptance, regret, perhaps, but no joy. They were finally free of Magnus. But Joseph remained. 

"I do not know you, yet," Wanda said, looking once again at the white-haired man who had been cloned from her father. "I don't know what kind of . . . relationship we can have." 

"None!" Pietro snapped, glaring. Wanda shook her head, her hand pressed soothingly to her brother's chest, calming him somehow with just her touch. Close and connected, as they had always been. He bent his white head over her, still glaring sidelong at Joseph. 

"Pietro, he is not Father," she said evenly, her dark eyes filled with concern. Trying to head off her hot-headed brother before an unnecessary feud erupted. But Joseph didn't rise to the hostility. 

"No, I am not your father, not exactly," Joseph said, his face grim. "I remember parts of Magnus' life, but most of it is indistinct. I have memories of you, of both of you. I do know he regretted some of the decisions he made regarding you both, but he did not let that sway him from what he saw as his path. The two of you were both a great source of pride to him, as well as a great sorrow. He admired and respected your dedication to the Avengers, Wanda, and Pietro, to his family." 

Pietro seemed stunned, Wanda moved. Her control slipped and the tears she'd been holding back fell freely. She turned into Pietro's hold, drawing her brother close, holding him tightly as she cried. Pietro bent his head, hugging her in return, murmuring suspiciously hoarse words of comfort to her in a soft, guttural tongue. Joseph blinked in surprise as he undoubtedly realized he could understand him, then he turned his face away, toward the empty far corner of the tent. Wanda's quiet sobs were loud in the sudden silence. Everyone shifted uneasily, feeling like intruders on the twins' grief. Joseph waited, stoic and still. 

Alex looked at his friend, watching a single tear track down the man's face. How did it feel, to listen to others grieve the death of someone who was you, in a strange way? He was perhaps not quite as distant from Magnus as he pretended. Alex's hand tightened on Joseph's shoulder reassuringly, then he glanced up into the stony face of his own brother. Scott stood near the tent flap, Commander Bridge at his side, both of them silently watching the drama unfold in front of them. Reality intruded. 

"Joseph, you'd better make a stand here," Alex said with quiet intensity. 

The gray gaze shifted to him, a single brow rose. He nodded back, urging him on. Joseph seemed reluctant, clearly understanding that this step would send him down a difficult path, and one he wasn't certain he wished to take. Both the desire for freedom and a strange sense of duty seemed to tug at him; Wanda's tears twisting them in his heart. Then he raised his head and with all the firm dignity but none of the arrogance of Magnus said, "Commander Bridge, I hereby claim Genosha by right of genetic identity. I will take over Magnus' rule of this island and make it again a haven for all those who are outcast." 

"Shit," Bridge said tersely, acceding. "I was afraid you'd catch on to that." He broke into a quick grin then, clearly relieved to have his moral dilemma resolved for him. The SHIELD commander reached into a pocket then tossed a card-key to Alex. Who caught it, grinned back, and swiped it through the slot on Joseph's restraints without further hesitation. They fell away, Joseph catching them with his magnetic powers before they could hit the floor. He stared at them for a moment, his expression pensive. 

With a gesture, he tossed them into the far corner, lifted his head, stepped around the silently watching twins and strode out of the tent, Alex following close on his heels. 

* * * * *

It was even harder than he had thought it would be, to walk amid the ruins. It was true that most of Hammer Bay was blasted beyond recognition, but the pattern of streets remained. He knew exactly where they were. There used to be a park, a tiny haven of trees around a fountain, here in the center of the bustling city. And an elementary school across the street. He carefully didn't look that way. 

After trailing Joseph from the tent, Alex found himself guiding the other man around. Joseph had never visited the capitol city before it's destruction, had never even been on Genosha. So Alex pointed out the blasted base of the Citadel itself, the charred foundations where the Ministry of Defense had stood, and the rubble that was all that remained of several hospitals, training centers and schools. Places with deep underground complexes. The SHIELD telepaths had long ago determined that no survivors remained, and the Nexus had confirmed their assessment when he swept the island to free the trapped shades, but machinery and computers didn't need air to breathe. 

And Genosha would need every resource that they could recover. 

Joseph stopped finally, standing silent near the edge of the latest rubble pile. He closed his eyes and spread his hands out flat in the air over the earth. A blue-white glow surrounded him, enveloping Alex as well. The Nexus reacted as it had with Magneto's shade, reaching greedily for the raw power around it. Alex kept a ruthless hold on it, struggling with it until he remembered that if he bled a small portion of his own plasma energy into it, it was far easier to control. 

"Tell me again what I am looking for?" Joseph's voice was remote, distracted by his concentration. 

"Anything useful," Alex said shortly, still wrestling with the Nexus. It was taking more concentration of his own than he liked to keep it under control. 

"Ah," Joseph said. "This should be useful. The lower levels of this hospital are mostly intact." And with that, Joseph reached out with his power deep into the ground. As the glow left them, Alex felt some relief. The Nexus, apparently, reacted to proximity. He took a few steps away and felt even more relief. 

Before them, the ground shifted, obviously filled with metal fragments and other elements that the new master of magnetism could control. He felt a twinge of pain. Lorna could have done this as well. Then he firmly put his grief, his regret aside. 

Rubble flowed like water, pouring away as a huge chunk of blasted concrete and twisted steel rose into the air. 

"Where should I put it?" Joseph asked, looking over his shoulder at him, an eyebrow raised. Not showing any sign of strain as he held tons of debris suspended inside a magnetic cocoon in the air above them. 

Alex frowned, at a loss how to answer him. Pile it on top of other rubble? Then they'd just have to move it again later. Further inland somewhere? Suddenly Quicksilver stood between them, his gray eyes flashing. 

"Put it in the sea, off the coast," the speedster said, his voice harsh. "If there is enough to break the surface when we have finished, then we will place a monument there, so that all may remember Genosha's dead. And the cost of intolerance." 

Joseph raised both brows at Pietro, glanced at Alex who nodded slowly in agreement. 

"Show me where you wish this place to be," he said quietly. 

"You can track me?" Quicksilver asked, a challenge thinly cloaked as a question. Joseph nodded calmly and Quicksilver was gone, like his namesake, disappearing instantly between the piles of rubble, only a plume of dust rising to mark his path. Joseph frowned deeper, his concentration total as he tracked the other mutant by his bio-magnetic signature. Then, as Quicksilver apparently reached the desired location, the pillar of rubble shot across the sky toward the bay. 

During their wandering through the ruins, they'd attracted a small following of curious off-shift recovery workers. Dusty, battered, grim-eyed from their work. They appeared human, all of them. Alex soon found it more interesting to watch the humans than it was to watch Joseph as he sent contained masses of rubble approximately the size of city buses across the sky with apparent ease. There were looks and cries of surprise and astonishment, and something like envy from the humans but surprisingly little fear. Awe, perhaps, but no fear. 

Quicksilver returned, coming to a stop beside Alex. He was already used to the odd way the Nexus reacted to Wanda's twin, and so blocked its call absently. And with Joseph's power under such strain, the Nexus was no longer reacting to him, but returning to it's quiescent state. He felt a wave of weariness, but not the debilitation he'd feared. At least he hoped he wasn't going to fall over on his face, asleep. Just in case, he seated himself with a sigh on a nearby chunk of concrete. 

Joseph paused in the shifting of rubble, his face as still and grim as the broken slabs of concrete he lifted. Then he turned and gestured to the closest of the watching humans. Startled, the man and woman approached hesitantly, darting wary glances at the deadly debris suspended above them. 

Joseph then closed his eyes and the debris shifted slowly. The humans, both below and watching beyond, gasped, flinching back. However, nothing but dust fell, the dangerous weight safely contained by a magnetic bubble. The rubble shifted and parted until finally, from out of the debris two crushed and mangled bodies descended gently to the ground. Comprehension lit the worker's faces and they gestured others forward. Who hurried down with gloved hands, dark bags and stretchers, the grim tools of their trade, accepting the bodies in silence. 

When the dead had been taken away, Joseph sent the rubble arcing toward the sea, then began his work again. Shifting debris, load by often grisly load, slowly exposing what looked like the garage entrance to the hospital that had once stood there. Around him, more recovery workers gathered. Understanding now, that he needed their help, their expertise. The humans worked beside him without hesitation, united in their grim work. 

A weary woman, sweat and dirt smeared across her face, even came up and touched Joseph's shoulder to direct him to an area they wished to search. He listened patiently, then held a precarious pile of rubble in a grip of magnetic force to allow her group to safely remove more bodies from beneath. 

Something stirred inside Alex at the sight. Hope. He and Pietro watched Joseph and the humans work in silence for a while. 

"He is strong," the Avenger finally said, arms crossed over his chest, his expression dark with suspicion. "With so much power at his disposal, tell me, Havok, what is to keep him from becoming, in the end, just like my late father?" 

"People like those. And me, and Nate, and Wanda," Alex said without hesitation, meeting Quicksilver's hot glare. "If we help him find reasons to keep caring, reasons to remain compassionate and just in the face of those who will hate and fear and fight him, he can be what he always should have been: a great and beloved leader." Quicksilver frowned again, his narrowed gaze locked on Joseph where he worked, oblivious to their conversation. Struggling with his memories, his fears, his own cynicism; Pietro Maximoff had been a man too often betrayed to trust easily. 

"I've personally witnessed his heroism in another reality," Alex continued earnestly, "and we've all heard of his fight to the end during the Age of Apocalypse. Nate believed in him there. Now, Joseph has a chance to be that noble man here for us." Waving his hand toward the ongoing work. 

"Will you help him too, Pietro?" Wanda interjected softly, her dark eyes filled with compassion and the blurring edge of grief and hope. "Help him to be the man we have wished our father to be?" Alex had felt her approach through the Nexus, and noted that she was careful to stay some distance from him. Wary of the Nexus. Her brother did not seem startled by her voice either. 

Quicksilver looked into his sister's eyes for a long while, finally turning away to stare thoughtfully at Joseph and the humans working beside him. His face was stern in repose, giving nothing away. 

"Perhaps," Pietro said finally, "he will wish to meet Luna, someday." 

* * * * *

Exhausted again, but not only from using the Nexus this time, Alex Summers sat in a straight-backed chair beside a low bed, arms resting on his knees as he watched his erstwhile nephew sleep. A gray and white cat that had apparently come with the house was curled up by the boy's head. Happy to have people around again. The Sentinels hadn't bothered with animals and there were cats and dogs and cattle and other farm animals roaming loose everywhere around the inner parts of the island. Freed by the massive destruction. 

Nate was still sleeping. He'd been out now for nearly twenty-four hours. Alex had asked Scott to relay his concerns over the boy's condition to Jean. His sister-in-law had contacted him directly, reassuring him that Nate was already much improved and that he should be allowed to wake on his own. 

//I didn't realize how much I'd miss the brat until he was gone,// Jean had said wistfully in his mind. Alex had smiled, scrubbing a hand over his face as he watched the boy sleep. //I'm glad you found a way to bring him back, Alex. And I'm glad you came back too.// 

//Thanks, Jean,// he had replied, warmed by her gentle sentiment. They had carefully avoided any mention of Scott. 

//Details later? I can 'see' how tired you are,// she had said, her mental tone tinged with worry. He smiled again, knowing the feelings associated with the gesture would transmit to her. 

//Details later, I promise,// he said. She had broken contact with a light brush across his mind, the psychic equivalent of a hand brushing against his cheek. 

Then, alone in his own head again, he had stared blankly at Nate on his cot, not really seeing the boy as he reflected over the busy events of the afternoon. 

It had taken Wanda and Alex and the head of the International Red Cross recovery team – a bluff Englishwoman by the name of Caro Forsythe – a great deal of persuading to finally convince Joseph to leave off his efforts amid the ruins. They had found many more bodies, and opened the lower levels of the hospital to the surface again. The recovery team had plenty of new work to do. Joseph had begun to tire, his control slipping, yet refused to pause. It was only when Alex starkly pointed out that he was endangering others by leaking bits of debris across the sky that he finally stopped. 

He had buried his face in his hands, big shoulders shuddering. His long white hair gray with dust, tangled from the wind. After a moment, he had mastered himself, raising his head again to reveal haunted eyes. They all shared that look. 

Then Joseph requested the use of the Avenger's Quinjet. Or more accurately, the use of the extensive communications systems available on board, through which he relayed a press conference and several interviews to worldwide broadcast systems. Calmly informing the world that Genosha would go on, that he, Joseph Lensherr, heir of Magneto, would open the island as a haven to all the outcast peoples of the world – both human and mutant. His only requirements being a willingness to work, and a binding pledge of tolerance for the differences inherent in both human- and mutant-kind. 

Once Joseph had decided to take over Magnus' mantle, he'd gotten right down to business. 

Stunned, Wanda and Pietro had offered him the cautious support of the Avengers after a hurried conference with the Avenger's current leader, Janet Van Dyne – the Wasp. 

Joseph had then formally requested that SHIELD surrender jurisdiction of the island to him. Commander Bridge's superiors conceded the point only after heated argument with the two Avengers, and the threat of a call to the United Nations. 

When it was all over, Joseph allowed SHIELD to remain for a few more days. The recovery workers he made his guests, through Caro Forsythe. Most agreed to stay and continue their work. Wary of the politics, but willing to give him a chance after that afternoon's display. 

SHIELD grudgingly confirmed that numerous refugee boats were already on their way. Some long-term exiles, some new. Several nations offered aide for the rebuilding, and were, Joseph commented darkly, no doubt eager to see to the creation of a place where the unwanted could be housed off their own soil. They'd soon need to watch for the dumping of criminals, he said wryly. Publicly, Joseph accepted their aide without protest, not quibbling over motives, just results. 

With Joseph weary from his earlier efforts, Alex had borrowed a jeep. With Quicksilver as guide and scout, and Caro Forsythe to coordinate, he had taken Joseph out into the only slightly less devastated countryside. Nearly every building, installation or structure they encountered had been damaged if not outright destroyed. In the foothills beyond Hammer Bay, they found a small hydropower station still on-line. Down the road from it, there was even a relatively intact village. West Moreau. Aide workers had already been through it once and buried the dead. Joseph immediately decided to set up his headquarters there. 

He was already making plans to clear and re-pave the damaged highway. Alex was impressed. 

With Quicksilver's assistance, they soon relocated to the little village. Most of the buildings were suitable for habitation – the bulk of the residents had fled before the Sentinels and died on the roads or in the hills. Commander Bridge sent agents to restore power to the small town for them. Alex had insisted on Nate remaining with him, and anxiously oversaw his transfer to a suitable place. He was worried about the boy, who despite having the sedation stopped, had for hours now shown little sign of waking. He had no idea what to do. 

Alex had showered, eaten and fallen into bed for a few hours rest. Then woke, restless and unsettled in the dark of the night. Only to come up to Nate's room again to watch him sleep. Lost for a time in memories of Scotty and the Six. Wondering how his son was coping with his absence. Wondering about Madelyne, free of the Goblin Force forever. His wife. 

"Hey, Uncle Alex," a hoarse voice interrupted his reverie. He looked over in surprise, meeting a weary blue and gold gaze. He smiled widely, relieved. 

"Hey, kid," he said, leaning toward the bed. "How you feeling?" 

"I've got the mother of all headaches, but otherwise I'm okay," Nate said with a faint wince, then looked around curiously. "Where are we?" 

"Still on Genosha," Alex said. "We found a town further inland that wasn't completely razed." 

"Oh," Nate said, squeezing his eyes shut and lifting a hand to his forehead. Apparently still in pain. His movement woke the cat which raised it's head and blinked sleepy green eyes at Alex. "We?" 

"Joseph. Quicksilver. The Scarlet Witch." 

"You said Joseph? Does that mean he's back like me too?" 

"Yeah," Alex said ruefully. "I don't know my own strength, I guess." 

Nate smiled faintly, face pale. "Good. I like Joseph." His hand massaged between his closed eyes. The cat settled back down to sleep again. Alex was considering getting him a bottle of aspirin, but wasn't sure it would do any good for psychic pain. He noticed that the boy wasn't trying to get up yet, just lying on the pillow looking like someone nursing a bad hangover. Maybe Jean had been too optimistic. 

"Wait." Nate's eyes cracked open again as he frowned. "Aren't the other two Magneto's estranged kids?" 

"Yeah," Alex said. 

"Damn, and I missed that reunion?" Nate struggled up onto his elbows, a sardonic twist to his lips. The cat got up, moved to the end of the bed with an indignant glare and settled down again, tail tucked neatly around it's body. The boy was moving slowly, but at least he was moving, Alex noted. So he smiled again, chuckling softly. Then sobered, watching Nate's pale face, the small lines of pain between his eyebrows and around his mouth. Not fully recovered, but mule-stubborn like all Summers. He didn't want to tell him this yet, but knew he'd better. If Nate learned later, he'd be even more hurt. 

"Scott was here too." 

"Oh?" The tone wary, cautious. Left eye flaring. The TK was fine, apparently. Alex sighed deeply. 

"He's gone back to Westchester. The Professor summoned him." 

"Yeah, well, I'm sure he's busy," Nate said, only partially hiding his disappointment as he sat all the way up. Alex understood the boy's pain. The only father he'd ever acknowledged hadn't bothered to wait for him to wake up, to see if he was okay. Alex sighed again, angry with his brother even while he understood his reasons, feeble as they were. 

"You were right," he said, trying to catch his gaze. Feeling weary and defeated in the face of the boy's disappointment. "En Sabah Nur damaged him. He's not... he's not the Scott I remember." 

Nate met his gaze finally, grief and guilt evident. "Apocalypse was my enemy. He took _my_ place." 

"Don't beat yourself up over it, Nate," Alex said quietly after a moment of tense silence. "He did what he had to do to save you. There wasn't anything else he could do. Not Scott. And if anyone can recover from this, it's my brother. He's tough." He kept his doubts to himself, burying them. Hoping Nate's telepathy was still too raw for him to be scanning him. 

"I guess so," Nate said, staring into the shadowy corner, expression thoughtful. Then he glanced at Alex. "What's Joseph been up to? How did the meeting go with Magneto's kids?" The change of subject was obvious. 

"Aren't you hungry?" Alex asked instead of answering, sliding back in his chair. Nate's stomach almost immediately growled in response. The boy rolled his eyes. 

"Guess so," he said again. Alex shook his head, laughing softly as he climbed to his feet. He held out a hand to Nate who took it after first shooting him a hard look. He hauled the boy easily to his feet. Nate swayed slightly and he put his hand on his shoulder to keep him steady. 

"Okay?" 

"Yeah," Nate replied through gritted teeth, pale face flushing as he shot him a weary look. "I never realized Magneto was a telepath. He got the drop on me. Sorry." 

"Latent. But then, he was really pissed too." 

Nate gave a bark of surprised laughter. "Oh, fine. Next time _you_ get the headache then…" 

Alex laughed too as he led the boy down to the kitchen to feed him, the cat trailing along behind them, anxious for company. 

- - to be continued - -


End file.
